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LCQ3: Permanent aviation fuel facility
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    Following is a question by the Hon Wong Kwok-hing and a reply by the Secretary for Economic Development and Labour, Mr Stephen Ip, in the Legislative Council today (May 9):

Question:

     The Government is processing the application by the Airport Authority Hong Kong to build a permanent aviation fuel facility ("tank farm") at Tuen Mun Area 38.  In this connection, will the Government inform this Council :

(a) of the latest progress of the aforesaid application, and whether there are other possible sites;

(b) whether there are any stipulations on the safety distance between the tank farm and residential areas, as well as that between the tank farm and various types of industrial/commercial premises; if not, how the Government safeguards the lives of the public; and

(c) given that the design and building of tank farms are subject to the Code of Practice for Oil Storage Installations, whether the Government has updated the Code since its revision in 1992 in accordance with the changes in relevant international standards; if it has, of the details of the updating exercise; if not, the reasons for that?

Reply:

Madam President,

(a) In accordance with the requirements of the Environmental Impact Assessment Ordinance (EIAO), the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) Report for the Permanent Aviation Fuel Facility (PAFF) was made available for public inspection from February 23 to March 24, 2007, and was considered and endorsed by the Advisory Council on the Environment on April 19, 2007.  This EIA Report is now being considered by the Director of Environmental Protection (DEP) for approval.

     The search for a suitable site for the PAFF started in 1991. The selection criteria included water depth of at least 17 metres for access by oil tankers, availability of sufficient land to build the jetty and other necessary facilities, viable route for oil pipelines to airport, compliance with environmental legislation and certainty of timely completion to meet growing demand for aviation fuel.  

     More than ten sites near the airport and Lantau Island had been considered in the site search process.  Tuen Mun Area 38 was finally identified as the most preferred site in 2001.  

     The extensive site search undertaken demonstrated that the selected site meets all the requirements.  Any attempt to select another site now would entail a repetition of the site selection process, and even if a site could be identified, the Airport Authority (AA) would need to seek all necessary statutory approval for construction of the PAFF at the new site.  All these procedures would take considerable time, making it impossible to complete the PAFF by 2009.  This would affect the operation of Hong Kong air services as from 2009 the capacity of existing fuel receiving and storage facilities would not be able to ensure continual operation of our airport in the event of fuel supply disruption.

(b) Jet A1 fuel to be stored in the PAFF is safer than other fuels such as gasoline and LPG because Jet A1 fuel is more difficult to ignite.  The required safety distance between the tanks for Jet A1 fuel and the boundary of the PAFF site is 10 metres under the Hong Kong Code of Practice for Oil Storage Installations (COP).  In the case of the PAFF, the minimum spacing between the tanks and the PAFF site boundary is 28.5 metres.

     Furthermore, PAFF tanks will be surrounded by a sunken bund with containment capacity well exceeding international standards to contain any possible fuel spillage.  Compared with the common worldwide practice of using a single bund wall and fence, the PAFF will have two additional impervious security walls and a landscape bund to further reduce any risk to parties outside its perimeter.  Other safety measures of the PAFF include fixed base foam injection, shell cooling systems on the tanks and remotely operated foam monitors, etc.  As detailed in the EIA Report for the PAFF, quantitative risk assessments revealed no unacceptable offsite risks. A separate study jointly commissioned by the Tuen Mun District Council and AA has also come up with similar findings.  

(c) The COP is issued by the Building Authority to provide general guidelines for the design, construction and maintenance of oil storage installations.  In the design of the PAFF, AA has, apart from complying with the above COP, adopted the latest versions of the relevant international design and construction standards and codes of practice.

Ends/Wednesday, May 9, 2007
Issued at HKT 12:25

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