Safety and Disaster Prevention/Occupational Health and Safety

Our commitment to Environment, Social, and Governance (ESG)

In line with the basic principle, “Safety comes first,” Crasus Chemical aims to ensure the health and safety of all its workers, including its own employees and the employees of contractors and other partners, and to provide them with workplaces where they can work with peace of mind.

Industrial Safety Management Policy
Occupational Health and Safety Management System
Equipment Safety
Disaster Control

Industrial Safety Management Policy

In order to “Support lives today and tomorrow with Chemistry,” the Crasus Chemical Group gives first priority to safety and compliance and ensures the appropriate management of industrial safety to prevent safety incidents, protect the health and safety of employees and local communities, and achieve zero incidents and accidents.

We will ensure the appropriate management of industrial safety, making it our top priority.
We will ensure compliance with laws and regulations.
We will continuously make improvements in the management of industrial safety.
We will ensure risk management and change management to prevent incidents.
We will provide all employees with industrial safety education.
We will proactively introduce new advanced technologies.
We will work to build symbiotic relations with local communities and society at large.

Occupational Health and Safety Management System

Occupational health and safety management systems provide a framework to improve the working environment and ensure workplace safety. The Oita Complex obtained ISO 45001 certification, which is an international standard for occupational health and safety systems, in January 2009.

Equipment Safety

We are conducting “Active Safety” activities to prevent the reoccurrence of similar incidents by analyzing past incidents and problems experienced by ourselves and other companies, aiming for zero equipment-related incidents.

Accredited for safety inspections based on the High Pressure Gas Safety Act of Japan

Since 2003, the Oita Complex has been continuously accredited by the Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry to implement safety inspections on its own as an accredited safety inspector under the High Pressure Gas Safety Act. Presently, the Oita Complex is qualified to carry out its own safety inspections to continue the operation of the facility for four consecutive years with no suspension of operations. Under the accreditation system, companies that are evaluated to be excellent in terms of operational management and equipment management essential to ensure industrial safety and disaster control are qualified to conduct safety inspections on their own equipment. Regular repair work was conducted at the Oita Complex in 2022, and it has continued to operate since then without any problems. The Complex is currently making preparations for the next round of repair work, slated for 2026, while conducting its own inspections of the equipment under operation to ensure its safety.

Equipment inspection by drone

At the Complex, scaffolding is set up to allow human operators to inspect equipment in high places. This kind of inspection, however, does pose a safety risk to the operators. In response, we looked into the possibility of automating such equipment inspection by utilizing recently advanced drone technologies. Unfortunately, we found that capturing images through the manual operation of a drone would be time-consuming and costly. In order to solve this problem, we conducted an experimental trial using an autonomous navigation drone in December 2023. In the trial, we specified an aerial route and image capture spots on a 3D model created in advance and then confirmed that the drone could fly the specified route and capture images at the designated spots. Going forward, for the implementation of autonomous drone navigation-based regular safety patrols, we will work to link the drone system with an image analysis system and establish the necessary operational method and rules to enable a drone to meet related challenges, including reading the values of on-site indicator instruments and detecting rust on the equipment.

Autonomous navigation by a drone
Autonomous navigation route

Safety competency evaluation by a third party

In April 2024, the Oita Complex had its safety infrastructure and safety culture inspected by the Japan Industrial Safety Competency Center of the Japan Society for Safety Engineering. Following the inspection, the Complex received high ratings from the inspector for many of the safety infrastructure and safety culture indicators, testifying to the effectiveness of the long-term measures that it has taken to set, implement, evaluate and continuously improve its industrial safety management systems and plans, including those for risk assessment. The inspection demonstrated that the Complex had made substantial improvements since the previous inspection conducted by the Center. There is, however, still room for improvement regarding some of the indicators as identified in the inspection, and we will push ahead with the current measures to raise our industrial safety to an even higher level.

Disaster Control

Against the worst case of an accident/disaster, we are implementing equipment-related measures and conducting drills as required.

Emergency drills

Against an accident/disaster affecting the entire Oita Petrochemical Complex zone, we are conducting comprehensive disaster control drills jointly with other companies operating in the zone, in addition to our own daily workplace disaster control training. The comprehensive disaster control drills include those conducted in collaboration with government agencies.

Incipient firefighting training

In the event of an accident/disaster, it may be necessary to conduct firefighting activities in the initial stages of the event for disaster control purposes. To help on-site employees improve their incipient firefighting skills, we conducted an incipient firefighting drill provided by the Maritime Disaster Prevention Center. In this drill, participants received practical training in how to extinguish an oil fire occurring in a three-dimensional structure following deskwork in which they acquired some basic knowledge about fires. In the practical training, participants were divided into groups of five and trained how to approach and extinguish an oil fire using fire extinguishers while protecting themselves from radiant heat.

Incipient firefighting training 1
Incipient firefighting training 2

Drill to install and use large-capacity foam fire extinguishing equipment

The Oita Complex conducted a drill to install and use large-capacity foam fire extinguishing equipment. The deployment of this equipment was mandated based on the lessons learned from the engulfment of a floating roof tank in a fully developed fire caused by the earthquake that occurred off the coast of Tokachi in Hokkaido in September 2003. The Oita Complex is a member of the Nishi-Chugoku and Hokubu-Kyushu wide-area disaster control council, which maintains foam fire extinguishing equipment in Shunan City, Yamaguchi Prefecture for shared use by council members. On the morning of the day of the training, participants installed the equipment, which had been transported to the site by five large trucks. Then, in the afternoon, they sprayed the extinguishing agent toward the sea to confirm that the equipment functioned according to the specifications. In the training, which required a great deal individual collaboration, participants checked the fire extinguishing steps one by one and proceeded carefully to get through the training with no incidents or injuries. We will continue to conduct practical drills like this one to enhance the Complex’s disaster control capacity.