ORICA and the coal industry have hit out at state government plans to change the rules surrounding the storage of ammonium nitrate, saying they would increase the risk to the public by dramatically increasing the amount of product coming through the Port of Newcastle.
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The government says it "proposes to only licence facilities to store ammonium nitrate if they comply with standard separation distances from populated areas and infrastructure".
The inquiry is being run by SafeWork NSW, which issued a discussion paper in October last year, saying the August 2020 Beirut explosion had led to "community concern about the safety of the state's ammonium nitrate storage facilities".
The explosion in the Lebanese capital killed more than 200 people, injured 7000 and caused more than $20 billion in damage.
IN THE NEWS:
Some 2750 tonnes of ammonium nitrate - kept for six years in the port after a shipping company dispute - exploded in a waterfront storage shed, apparently ignited by workers welding a door to a warehouse that was also storing fireworks.
As the Newcastle Herald reported in November, the Stockton Community Group welcomed the changes, saying they would limit storage at Orica Kooragang to 200 tonnes, rather than the 6000 to 12,000 tonnes typically stored there. But the bulk of the 18 submissions to the SafeWork inquiry are critical of the changes.
Orica's submission says it would reduce on-site storage by 95 per cent.
"The achievement of over 50 years of safe handling and storage in NSW, without incident, is not attributable to good fortune, but rather to strict adherence to existing controls which have proven effective..."
It continues: "If adopted, the SafeWork NSW proposal would represent a significant cost burden on existing facilities, driving future investment in ammonium nitrate storage capability to other jurisdictions.
"This is at odds with SafeWork NSW's stated objective of providing investment certainty for NSW.
"The retrospective application of prescribed separation distances will also significantly challenge the long-term viability of ammonium nitrate manufacturing in NSW and will drive greater reliance on imported product (currently just eight per cent of NSW supply and predominantly from Lithuania and Vietnam, compared with the current nearly 70 per cent sourced from Orica's local NSW manufacturing).
"This significant change will be at the cost of locally manufactured product and will jeopardise access to sovereign supply.
"This puts at risk the jobs of hundreds of people and thousands more of indirect jobs, which underpin provincial and regional economies within the state."
The Orica submission calls on SafeWork to "pause" its "current approach" which seeks to replace site-by-site risk assessment with a matrix of tonnage-related "separation" distances between storage facilities and residential areas.
The NSW Minerals Council has also called for a pause on the proposed changes and called on SafeWork to "demonstrate the purported inadequacies of the current controls".
"Given the likely perverse safety outcomes, the flawed justification and simplistic consequence-based approach, NSW Minerals Council strongly opposes the proposal set out in the discussion paper being applied in any way," its submission says.
SafeWork says that "although ammonium nitrate has a low likelihood of explosion, international incidents show that the consequences can be significant". It lists Beirut and three other "major explosions": West, Texas in 2013, Angellala Creek, Queensland in 2014 and Tianjin, China in 2015.
Crawfords Freightlines, which transports ammonium nitrate and stores it at Sandgate, says in its submission that: "The Angellala Creek incident is a transport accident and ... as a consequence of the (SafeWork) proposal, there will be more ammonium nitrate trucks on the road and longer journeys.
"The incidents at Texas, Tianjian and Beirut all involved storage practices that are illegal in Australia and would have been identified by Australian regulators and the sites shut down promptly."
City of Newcastle in its submission supported improved safety but said "prescriptive separation distances" as proposed could mean a facility complying this year but not next year if an identified "vulnerable facility" was then built in the area.
Submissions are being assessed, with SafeWork promising to "share ... what we learn from all feedback here".
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Ian Kirkwood
Reporting journalist at the Newcastle Herald since 1987. Editorial writer, general reporter, industrial relations, industry and coal.
Reporting journalist at the Newcastle Herald since 1987. Editorial writer, general reporter, industrial relations, industry and coal.
