The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) has revised guidance on exposure to welding fume.  Task specific guidance for welding, cutting and associated tasks is provided in a suite of documents:

WL0 – Advice for managers WL2 – Welding in confined/limited/restricted spaces WL3 – Welding Fume Control WL14 – Manual gas and oxy-gas cutting WL15 – Plasma arc cutting: fixed equipment WL16 – Arc-air gouging (air-carbon arc gouging) WL18 – Surface preparation: Pressure blasting (small items) WL19 – Surface preparation: Pressure blasting (medium-sized items) WL20 – Surface preparation: Pressure blasting (Large items) WL21 – Weld cleaning with pickling paste

Martin Temple, chairman of the Health and Safety Executive (HSE), addressed delegates at the opening session of the Oil and Gas UK (OGUK) HSE Conference in Aberdeen on Wednesday 6th November.  He spoke about the down-manning of EnQuest’s Thistle Alpha installation last month. The platform, around one hundred and twenty-five miles north-east of Shetland, evacuated its crew after a subsea inspection found deterioration in the condition of a metal plate connecting a storage tank to the platform’s legs.

This deterioration was similar to that which triggered the drastic capsize, and resulting death of one hundred and twenty-three men, in 1980 of the Alexander L Kielland, in the Norwegian sector of the North Sea.  Mr Temple said that recent case, among others, highlighted the need for the sector to focus on asset integrity.  He also spoke about Process Safety Leadership principles to which industry leaders from various offshore bodies have recently signed up.   These principles are designed to prevent repeats of events such as Piper Alpha or the 2005 Buncefield explosion at the Hertfordshire Oil Storage Terminal.

A report on the Mining.com web site suggests that the market for recycled lithium batteries is expanding exponentially.  Interestingly in North America and Europe, recycling is seen as a waste disposal activity for which companies should be paid to carry out. In China, the largest producer and consumer of lithium-ion batteries, competition has become so intense that recyclers  pay to for dead batteries.

Recycled lithium batteries market to hit $6 billion by 2030 — report