The UK Oil Storage Regulations are complex and can cause
enforcement difficulties.David Lummis, CEO of the British
Safety Industry Federation (BSIF), discusses the need for
standardisation to curb confusion both for suppliers
and distributors

Oil Storage Regulations are part of
the devolved legislative
framework within the UK.

Wales, Scotland, Northern Ireland and
England each have separate
regulations that suppliers and
distributors throughout the UK must
abide by. These individual regulations
can cause confusion and enforcement
difficulties. In many instances companies
may be inadvertently breaching Oil Storage
Regulations, thereby putting the health and
safety of individuals at risk, as well as placing
the organisation at danger of heavy penalties.

The stark reality may be that the
organisation believes it is operating within
the law, although the laws they are operating
within, may actually be for a different
country.

It is because of this confusion and a lack
of consistency that members of the BSIF
wish to see a standardisation of the Oil
Storage Regulations within the UK (similar
to the Health and Safety regulations). This
standardisation would avoid local confusion
within industrial organisations that trade
throughout the UK and avoid adverse
impacts of local variations by
insurers and the application
of variable insurance
expectations and premiums.

Due to the lack of
conformity within the UK
regulations, the differences
between countries have the
potential to cause
significant confusion. For
example, in Scotland the
regulations include indoor
oil storage whereas the
English regulations do
not; in Northern Ireland
the regulations include Oil
Storage Depots whereas they
are specifically excluded from
the English and Scottish
regulations, in Scotland the
regulations include all
waste oils such as cooking
oil, and the Welsh
regulations are still to
be established so it is
not currently known
what will be included.

Unfortunately
there is little
motivation for the
average industrial
company using moderate
amounts of process
oils and petrochemicals
to
comply with these
regulations as,
although penalties
are extreme, the
likelihood of being
caught is minimal.

At present, responses
from industrial
organisations often take the view that ‘it does
not really matter as I am unlikely to get
caught’.

Additionally, many industrial
organisations believe that they are insured
for environmental risks in the same way as
they are for health and safety risks and while
this is not always accurate there is a belief
that ‘providing I am acting responsibly in
‘my’ terms there is not really a problem
because the insurer will pay the bill’.

To help curb these beliefs, standardisation
of the UK Oil Storage Regulations would
help enforce a more stringent law that can be
policed consistently throughout the UK.

The Federation believes that from a costmanagement
basis the argument for
harmonisation of the regulations is strong.

For example industrial companies storing oil
need to act differently in all countries . If the
organisation carries out multi-branch
operations in all three administrations, this
will naturally create management procedure
variations which, by the fact of the
differences, will cause confusion, possible
lack of compliance and potentially adoption
of the lowest common denominator.

Harmonised regulations would also
allow a more cohesive
and rigorous approach
to industry
monitoring,
hence the true
nature of
personal
accidents and
injuries could
be discovered.

While the oil
storage
regulations are
about preventing
leaks and spills,
when these do occur
they will need to be dealt
with and in most instances it
will be people dealing with them.

By the very nature of this task, people
are at risk, however, these dangers can be
minimised if sensible storage precautions are
taken.With the current regulations, there are
a number of potential problems where
contact contamination could arise as well as
potential for injury through ‘slips and trips’.

An example is the potential increase in
unreported spills of waste oil in England
(where certain waste oils are not within the
scope of the regulations) and the possible
rise in spills in oil storage depots in England
and Scotland (where oil storage depots are
not within the scope of the regulations).

Without doubt the regional variations of
these regulations are confusing; standardised
Oil Regulations throughout the UK and
indeed Europe would facilitate better
practice for suppliers and distributors, as
well as allowing them to provide superior
advice to end users.