In order to make the nation's management system for external pipelines in industrial areas more comprehensive, relevant laws and regulations will be amended in stages, Premier Jiang Yi-huah said today.
The improvement of pipeline management has attracted widespread attention since the multiple gas explosions in Kaohsiung City on July 31, which killed 30 people, injured 310 others and caused extensive property damage. The disaster was attributed to petrochemical pipe leakage.
Because the future development of the petrochemical industry in Kaohsiung is closely tied to local development, the central government will hear the opinions of the Kaohsiung City Government (KCG) before proceeding with deliberations on legal changes, Jiang added.
The premier made these remarks after listening to reports by the Public Construction Commission (PCC) and the Ministry of Economic Affairs (MOEA) on Kaohsiung petrochemical pipelines and industry development issues.
He asked the MOEA to call together relevant agencies to establish a central supervisory platform to improve pipeline management. Tasks and duties should be divided, he said, with the PCC recommending law and regulation changes and each agency formulating the amendments for areas under its jurisdiction.
As soon as the central government's supervisory platform is established, local governments should set up a joint management platform, Jiang instructed. As such, a management mechanism dividing responsibility between three parties—industry and the local and central governments—can be created to oversee all control mechanisms and processes throughout pipes' lifetimes, from planning and design to construction, daily maintenance and management, disaster response, and pipe removal and replacement.
The premier ordered that relevant legal amendments be completed by the end of this year. In this legislation, safety management for pipelines and storage tanks of propylene, which was the cause of the explosion in the Kaohsiung incident, of butadiene, which is also flammable, and of benzene, which is toxic, must be chief priorities, he instructed.
The premier also asked the MOEA to help the KCG complete inventory and inspection of all the city's underground industrial pipes within the next three months.
After this meeting, Minister without Portfolio and PCC Minister Hsu Chun-yat stated that for the purposes of fire safety, disaster prevention and relief, and industrial development, future legal amendments will gradually reinforce external industrial pipelines that are in the same areas as sewerage.
In the short term, the Public Hazardous Substances & Flammable Pressurized Gases Establishment Standards & Safety Control Regulations (whose competent authority is the Ministry of the Interior) and the industrial hazardous material declaration regulations (MOEA) will be amended, and the industrial pipeline disaster prevention and relief plan (to be under the MOEA) will be established. In the mid-term, the Factory Management Act (MOEA) will also be amended.