Mr. Teodor Constantinescu, Head of the Romanian Water Quality Office welcomed the around 20 participants (ladies and gentlemen), members of the environmental authorities of the 13 states bordering the Danube river, underlining the importance of this event and opening the training session.
Mr. Aurel Varduca, member of ICIM – Romanian Research and Engineering Institute for Environment, moderated the seminar.

Fig. 1: Participants at the seminar

Mrs. Kerstin Tschiedel, Environmental Office of the state of Brandenburg, opened the presentation sessions with a report regarding the technical basic ideas of the safety policy. She presented a clear link between the production/operation and the human/environment factor under the aspects of the plant safety, and gave a detailed view of the different safety levels: minimum requirements, high requirements and special requirements, according to the plant units to be assessed.
The next speaker, Mr. Jörg Platkowski, R+D Industrie Consult, Uslar, presented the overview of the checklist method and how to handle them. Besides establishing the required measures and the decontamination priorities there were also presented exemplary technical proposals.
During the further presentations Mrs. Tschiedel, Mr. Platkowski and Mr. Konrad Kulpock, R+D Industrie Consult, Uslar explained the proper method for plant unit checking and assessments with the help of the checklist method. The checklists and the technical background knowledge were presented, e.g. plant unit splitting and determining the risk potential, general safety provisions for storage facilities, as well as instrumentation of tanks.
The first day ended with a common exercise. Based on a real example of a storage facility the participants had to assess it by the means of the storage checklist.
The second day of the seminar also brought theory and practice together. Subjects like sealing systems, in-plant pipeline safety and fire protection were explained. For a better understanding of the theory the participants were divided into groups to work on small exercises.
The afternoon continued with two presentations: the new recommendation for refineries by Mr. Platkowski and the improved checklist for contaminated sites by Mrs. Hermine Weber. Both presentations were subject to great deal of discussions afterwards.

The third training day brought a practical application of the two-day theoretical knowledge. For this purpose, with the approval of the “ROMPETROL” refinery in Constanta, it was chosen a plant unit similar to the PCK GmbH refinery, which was visited during the last year’s training session in Schwedt/Oder.
For the plant visit it was chosen an atmospheric crude oil distillation and storage facility.

Fig. 2: Plant visit at Rompetrol

Divided into two groups, the participants were able to apply the proper checklists to the different subjects:
The first group visited the storage of the crude oil and the second group actually visited the atmospheric distillation unit.
After a short visit of the plant, it was divided into proper units and analyzed which of the many checklists has to be applied for this unit. Afterwards each single question of the checklist was discussed. These discussions were very intense used to obtain explanations for all theoretical and practical details.
The last day of the seminar concluded the presentation round and opened the path to general discussions of the results.
Last, but not least, a presentation of the method for determination of the real risk was explained, followed by a practical exercise.

All participants agreed that this method is very suitable for a plant unit checking and assessment and becomes more effective through the result of this project.
The participants discussed mostly the method for quantification of the real risk. They all agreed to some important indications that will be introduced in the further development of the project documentation.
At this point we would like to express our gratitude and say “THANK YOU” to all the responsible persons who made this event a success, and especially to the staff of the “ROMPETROL” refinery, for a good organization and support during the plant visit.
The seminar was concluded by handing out the participant certificates