Halon Management and Banking Program

          Halon is an effective fire suppressant but has 10 times more ozone depleting potential (ODP) than CFC. Therefore, Halon is defined as controlled substance in Group 2 of Annex A under the Montreal Protocol to which all Parties have to phase out this substance.

          When countries phase out Halon in their production according to their obligations under the Protocol, Thailand’s fire prevention industry, as a user of this substance, will be inevitably affected from the higher price of Halon. To prepare for this situation, the country has established the Halon Management and Banking Program to set a guideline of Halon phaseout, control the Halon consumption according to the Montreal Protocol obligations and establish a Halon management plan as well as study the feasibility of physical Halon Bank in Thailand for storing and recycling Halon to meet the demand of local essential users.

          In December 1999, this project has been endorsed a fund of 420,750 US dollars from the Multilateral Fund and the bilateral cooperation between Sweden and Thailand. The Department has contracted DASCEM Holdings Pty., Ltd. as an international consultant, responsible for providing data, case studies and guidelines to the National Petrochemical Public Company Limited, a national consultant of this project.

           The implementation of this project was broken down in to several phases starting form collecting data from Halon users, the Department of Industrial Works, the Thai Custom Department and the Port Authority of Thailand to studying alternatives in and the market popularity. Based on the study, Thailand has stored each 50 tonnes of Halon 1211 and 1301 which is enough to respond the demand of local essential users up to 20 years and no need of physical Halon Bank. The Department, therefore, decided to put in place a Halon Electronic Database for exchanging information relating to both international and internal trade of Halon fire extinguishing agent. Since this system has to record all Halon export and import, Halon trades in the country can be tracked. The system is expected to be launched by the end of 2005 and will be operated along with the issuance of Ministerial Notifications to effectively control Halon import in to the country.