VZCZCXYZ0000
PP RUEHWEB

DE RUEHTC #0754/01 3511100
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
P 171100Z DEC 09
FM AMEMBASSY THE HAGUE
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC PRIORITY 3582
INFO RUEAIIA/CIA WASHDC PRIORITY
RUCPDOC/DEPT OF COMMERCE WASHDC PRIORITY
RHEBAAA/DEPT OF ENERGY WASHDC PRIORITY
RUEKJCS/SECDEF WASHINGTON DC PRIORITY
RHEHNSC/NSC WASHDC PRIORITY
RUEKJCS/JOINT STAFF WASHDC PRIORITY
RHMFIUU/DTRA ALEX WASHINGTON DC//OSAC PRIORITY

UNCLAS THE HAGUE 000754 
 
SIPDIS 
 
STATE FOR ISN/CB, VCI/CCA, L/NPV, IO/MPR, 
SECDEF FOR OSD/GSA/CN,CP> 
JOINT STAFF FOR DD PMA-A FOR WTC 
COMMERCE FOR BIS (BROWN, DENYER AND CRISTOFARO) 
NSC FOR LUTES 
WINPAC FOR WALTER 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: EIND PARM PREL OPCW CWC
SUBJECT: CWC: OPCW WORKSHOP ON OTHER CHEMICAL PRODUCTION 
FACILITIES 
 
REF: THE HAGUE 734 
 
This is CWC-75-09 
 
¶1. (U) SUMMARY:  In conjunction with its annual 
meeting for National Authorities (ref A), the 
Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical 
Weapons (OPCW) hosted a workshop on other chemical 
production facilities (OCPFs) in The Hague on 
November 25.  Washington experts from State/VCI and 
Commerce/BIS as well as local Delrep attended.  The 
workshop, organized by the OPCW's Technical 
Secretariat (TS), was chaired by Brazilian 
Ambassador Jose Medeiros and included a range of 
speakers from the TS, National Authorities and 
chemical industry.  The workshop provided an 
overview of OCPF characteristics and of the 
Chemical Weapons Convention's regime for OCPFs 
before focusing on the relevance of the OCPF regime 
in an evolving chemical industry and approaches to 
make the regime more effective.  Following the 
workshop, Commerce representative went on a site 
visit to a Dutch OCPF on November 26.  END SUMMARY. 
 
--------------------------------------------- - 
EVOLVING CHEMICAL INDUSTRY AND THE OCPF REGIME 
--------------------------------------------- - 
 
¶2. (U) Steve Wade (Head of the TS Declarations 
Branch) and Satya Dobhal (a Senior Industry Officer 
in the TS Industry Verification Branch) addressed 
declaration and verification requirements for OCPFs 
and described experiences since entry-into-force of 
the Convention.  They emphasized that the OCPF 
regime is an important nonproliferation tool whose 
implementation is carefully balanced against the 
cost and impact on chemical industry.  Wade 
encouraged the use of product group sub-codes -- 
proposed by the TS in 2008 -- by member states 
declaring activities at OCPFs in order to help the 
TS reduce the probability of selecting lesser- 
relevant plant sites for inspection.  He noted that 
27 member states (just over 35% of those declaring 
OCPFs) used the proposed sub-codes in their 2008 
updates on OCPF activities.  Dobhal stated that the 
TS pays special attention to administrative issues 
and technical points in final inspection reports, 
including: owner/operator identification, numbers 
of DOC/PSF plants, production ranges and activity 
codes, and differences in interpretation of the 
Convention between the TS and the inspected state 
party. 
 
¶3. (U) Dobhal spoke about the benefits of 
sequential inspections, stressing increased 
efficiency and financial savings to the TS and 
member states.  During the question and answer 
session, a representative from the Pakistani 
National Authority noted Pakistan's concern that 
increased efficiencies through sequential 
inspections would only lead to more OCPF 
inspections.  A representative from the Indian 
National Authority followed up with concerns on 
protecting confidentiality of different plant sites 
during sequential inspections. 
 
------------------------ 
CHARACTERISTICS OF OCPFS 
------------------------ 
 
¶4. (U) Peter Boehme (a Senior Industry Officer in 
the TS Industry Verification Branch) described the 
technical features of OCPFs and their chemical 
production processes.  He addressed unit, batch and 
continuous processes and applied these to examples 
Qcontinuous processes and applied these to examples 
of processes for OCPFs in the chemical industry. 
Laurentiu Lazar (another TS Senior Industry 
Officer) spoke about the experiences gained by the 
 
TS during OCPF inspections.  He noted the 
significance of a site's engineering capabilities 
for producing discrete organic chemical (DOCs) -- 
rather than the chemicals themselves -- to 
determine the absence of Schedule 1 chemicals 
during an OCPF inspection.  Explaining the 
rationale behind the proposed product sub-codes 
mentioned by Wade earlier, Lazar stated that 
approximately 200 of the 639 OCPF inspections 
carried out were at sites with dedicated and 
typically continuous operations which produced 
items of low relevance to the Convention (such as 
urea, formaldehyde methanol and soaps). 
 
¶5. (U) Boehme noted that about 10% of OCPF 
inspections went to sites which should not have 
been declared due to member states failing either 
to update their OCPF declarations or to understand 
declaration requirements.  (Del note:  Boehme's 
figure was for 2007, which saw a spike from 
previous years.  Inspections at non- 
declarable/inspectable sites fell to 4% in both 
2008 and 2009.  End note.)  Boehme also posited 
that during OCPF inspections the TS increasingly 
will encounter new technologies and materials, 
including use of micro-reactors, nano-materials and 
genetically-engineered catalysts and products. 
 
¶6. (U) Tsuyoshi Okuyama (a Senior Policy and Review 
Officer in the TS Policy Review Branch) presented 
an overview of the current methodology for 
selecting OCPFs for inspection.  Okuyama 
highlighted the uneven distribution of OCPFs among 
the 76 member states declaring facilities:  10 
member states have more than 75% of declared OCPFs 
while 38 member states have only 3%.  Due to this 
situation, he predicted that, in a couple of years, 
the current methodology will concentrate the 
majority of OCPF inspections in a few member states 
and these OCPFs will be of lesser relevance to the 
Convention. 
 
--------------------------------------------- ---- 
APPROACHES TO MAKE THE OCPF REGIME MORE EFFECTIVE 
--------------------------------------------- ---- 
 
¶7. (U) TS Inspection Team Leader Antonius Roof 
reviewed current inspection procedures, from 
planning to on-site execution to finalization.  He 
emphasized that a good pre-inspection briefing and 
a thorough plant site tour are important to insure 
an efficient and successful inspection.  Roof 
opined that sampling and analysis (S&A) would 
enhance OCPF inspections and that, with newly- 
developed sample preparation procedures, S&A could 
be accomplished in the 24 hours allotted to OCPF 
inspections.  Bill Kane (Head of the TS Industry 
Verification Branch) followed Roof's presentation 
with a call for member states to implement the two 
TS proposals on enhancing OCPF declarations: using 
product sub-codes and providing additional 
information on plant site characteristics. He 
reiterated the TS claim that the proposals will 
help focus the selection of OCPF inspections to 
more relevant sites.  Marthinus van Schalkwyk 
(South Africa), the facilitator for consultations 
on OCPF declaration enhancements, reported that his 
consultations so far have not resulted in member 
states reaching a consensus decision on the 
proposals; he noted that the outlook for agreement 
Qproposals; he noted that the outlook for agreement 
was not promising. 
 
¶8. (U) Stephanie Dare-Doyen from the French 
National Authority gave a presentation on the OPCW 
confidentiality regime and its relation to 
inspections.  She commented that the experience of 
France has been positive and that the regime 
appears to be adequate.  However, she noted the 
 
need for TS inspectors to understand industry 
concerns about protecting confidentiality, 
particularly related to the development of new 
technologies, such as biological-sourced chemicals 
and micro-reactors. 
 
--------------------------------------------- - 
EVOLVING CHEMICAL INDUSTRY AND THE OCPF REGIME 
--------------------------------------------- - 
 
¶9. (U) Four representatives from different National 
Authorities made the final round of presentations 
addressing national perspectives on the OCPF regime 
and its relationship to their countries' 
industries.  Yinong Zhao (China), stated China's 
concern that, since 2008, the Director-General's 
modified interim OCPF site selection methodology 
has sent too many inspections to China.  Zhao 
explained this situation was a result of the 
geographic selection element (p=0.5xN1/2) in the 
selection algorithm, and he proposed using a cube 
root (p=N1/3) to redress the problem.  He also 
expressed China's view that PSF plants are the most 
important OCPFs and that the A-14 selection 
algorithm should be modified to increase the 
probability of selecting PSF sites for inspection. 
¶G. Narendra Kumar (India) reiterated the Indian 
position that there is an over-emphasis on OCPFs to 
the detriment of scheduled chemical facilities.  He 
suggested that the verification regime should 
consider looking at end users rather than 
producers.  Like the Chinese presenter, Kumar 
stated that the A-14 selection algorithm should be 
modified to increase the probability of selecting 
PSF sites for inspection. 
 
¶10. (U) Melanie Reddlar (South Africa) described 
the evolution of South African chemical industry, 
noting the current trend to produce chemicals for 
niche markets rather than commodity chemicals.  She 
posited that the current OCPF site selection 
methodology does not guarantee selection of the 
most-relevant sites.  Reddlar suggested that 
declaration requirements should be changed to 
include actual chemicals produced thereby allowing 
the TS to focus inspections on the most-relevant 
OCPFs.  With only a few minutes left to give his 
presentation at the end of the workshop, Bob 
Mathews (Australia) noted that most of his comments 
on the technical aspects of the OCPF regime were 
taken from an article he had written for the July 
2009 edition of the CBW Conventions Bulletin 
(published by the Harvard-Sussex Program).  Having 
been involved in the negotiations on the Convention 
in Geneva, Mathews explained the reasoning behind 
the OCPF regime, citing concerns that Saddam 
Hussein had used OCPFs to produce chemical weapons 
in Iraq in the 1980s.  He commented that much needs 
to be done to maximize the non-proliferation 
benefits of the OCPF regime. 
 
------------------------------ 
INDUSTRY ASSOCIATION STATEMENT 
------------------------------ 
 
¶11. (U) Eric Jandraseta of the Swiss Chemical 
Association presented a statement on behalf of the 
ICCA/CEFIC and ACC clarifying their 2008 statement 
on the two TS proposals for OCPFs.  The current 
position of the chemical industry association is 
that the elements proposed by the TS will not 
improve OCPF site selection for inspection.  The 
Qimprove OCPF site selection for inspection.  The 
industry association statement also included a 
recommendation that the A-14 algorithm be modified 
to lower the probability of selecting OCPF sites 
which had previously been inspected under the 
Schedule 2 and/or Schedule 3 regimes, claiming 
these sites would pose a lower risk to the object 
 
and purpose of the Convention. 
 
¶12. (U) Beik sends. 
 
LEVIN