1. ATEX
2. Atex standards
3. Health, Safety and Environmental Protection Commitment Guide

Since 1 July 2003, it has been mandatory to apply the ATEX (French acronym for Explosible Atmospheres) directives 1999/92/EC and 94/9/EC throughout the European Community. The first directive lists the minimum requirements for the safety of workers called on to work in explosible atmospheres. The second, directive 94/9/EC, involves the launch onto the market of protection equipment and systems intended for use in explosible atmospheres. This directive is a so-called new approach directive, aimed at defining the essential requirements for marketing materials.

ATEX Directive 99/92/EC
This involves users such as refineries, gas compression units, etc.
It stipulates that from June 2003 all new equipment acquired by a user must comply with Directive 94/9/EC. For the other equipment, the users have three years in which to assess their explosive safety levels, to determine whether it can continue to operate as is, whether it requires total or partial modification to make it compliant or whether it must be replaced. Before entering into service, the new equipment must demonstrate its compliance to this directive.

ATEX Directive 94/9/EC
This involves the manufacturers of materials, small, medium and large assemblies. They must determine whether their materials are subject to the requirements of the directive.
The manufacturer is the person responsible for the development, construction and procedure leading to equipment certification.

In a desire to take into consideration all the risks it is likely to face, the UIC (French Union of Chemical Industries) has signed an agreement to improve safety with several related federations and unions and four employees' organisations. This agreement of 4 July 2002 includes several provisions to boost and improve safety at work, in particular the accreditation of outside contractors working on the sites of UIC members.
The agreement provides for pre-accreditation by an outside body of any contractor called on to work regularly on facilities classified Seveso - high threshold.

This accreditation is based on a reference framework (DT78) taking into account the criteria of the July 2002 agreement. Based on the special features of sites and operations, the chemical sites (or user companies) can put forward additional requirements.

Following the work, the auditor draws up an audit report giving the results and ruling on the possible accreditation of the outside contractor. A negative response to so-called "red" questions is eliminatory and automatically leads to rejection of the accreditation.

The accreditation is handed down by the body and the certificate is issued by UIC for three years. During these three years, an interim audit sixteen months minimum and twenty months maximum after the initial audit or the renewal audit should be scheduled to check that the system is maintained. This interim audit can cover one or more control points chosen at random or the weak point(s) revealed during the initial audit.

Fluides Pétrole Services obtained this certification in August 2004 following an audit and therefore adopts the procedures introduced by this standard: reception log, hiring sheet for each employee, list of products used, risk analysis, customer satisfaction survey, etc.

Through its partners, Fluides Pétrole Services has signed the Health, Safety and Environmental Protection Commitment Guide.

For moral, legal and economic reasons, the health and safety of each individual, the safety of assets and environmental protection are essential goals common to all the companies. These goals can only be achieved through the existence of an HSE policy focusing on Prevention.