(169c) The Changes of PSM(Process Safety Management) System in Republic of Korea

The Changes of PSM(Process Safety Management) system in Republic of Korea.

The chemical industries has been a lower frequency of accidents than other kind of industries, but it can cause enormous damage with one accident and it takes a considerable period of time to recover the damage.

As major industrial accidents had taken place all over the world, and international organizations strengthened the system for prevention, Korean government jointly organized an international seminar on prevention of industrial accidents in cooperation with the ILO to introduce a process safety management system in October 1992.

In accordance with the ratification of the ILO Convention for the Prevention of Industrial Accidents (C-174) (1993), the basis of process safety management system was established on January 5, 1995.
Since January 1, 1996, the process safety report review and confirmation policy implemented and has contributed to the prevention of chemical accidents.

At the beginning of the introduction of the process safety management system under Article 49-2 of the Industrial Safety and Health Act was revised on January 5, 1995, seven hazardous industries and 21 kind of hazardous materials were managed under of this Act.

The Industrial Safety and Health Act revised on January 7, 2000 abolished the 5-year process safety report re-submission and review rules for existing facilities as the regulations were relieved in accordance with the Special Measures for Deregulation of Business Activities.

After 2001, the implementation of the process safety report was verified on site. However, due to the increased social interest in the major industrial accident, the new law was introduced on March 31, 2005, Article 49-2, Paragraph 8 of the same Act, to reinforce the requirement to resubmit the process safety report if the complementary status was poor through the evaluation.

The Ministry of Labor visits workplaces where reports have been reviewed and confirmed, evaluates the level of implementation of the 12 elements of the process safety report, classifies them into 4 grades(P, S, M + and M- grades)

In the initial management system, the P-grade business sites were exempted the performance status check for 4 years and the M-grade business sites were repeatedly inspected every year.

However, P-grade business sites were inspected the performance status check once for 4 years from 2014 and if the level of implementation is insufficient, it can be reevaluated for downgrade.

In the event of a result of large-scale chemical accidents such as the hydrogen fluoride leakage in 2012, the kind of chemical substances to submit process safety report were increased from 21 to 51.