OCPF PIB Guidelines

OPCW recommends that the following information is included in the Pre-Inspection Briefing for an OCPF facility.

A. Introduction of participants 

  • Host team 

    • Names and functions 

  • Facility personnel 

    • Participants names and functions 

B. General information about the facility  

  • Brief history of the facility and basic information 

  • Type of industry (e.g., fertilizers, pharmaceuticals, pesticides, plasticizers, paints, soaps, etc.) 

  • Management, organisation, operations, environment 

  • Certificates of accreditations (e.g., ISO, FDA, etc.) 

  • Security features (e.g., fence/wall, CCTV, patrols, others) 

  • Any changes in the facility (operational, organisational) since the last inspection (if applicable) 

  • Number of employees 

  • Aerial view map indicating: 

    • Location in relation to Point of Entry (POE)

    • Distance from POE  

  • Facility layout indicating: 

    • Boundaries and gates 

    • Total area of the facility 

C. Facility safety measures 

  • Related to inspection conduct: 

    • No operation/touching of equipment 

    • Need for escort 

  • Related to facility: 

    • Safety hazards and safety procedures 

    • Specific personal protective equipment 

    • Emergency alarms and response procedures  

    • Evacuation routes 

    • Assembly points 

    • Location of medical facilities and nearest hospital (in km) 

D. Logistics and administrative information  

  • Working hours: administration and operations 

  • Working spaces 

    • Inspectors and escort team working spaces (offices), and briefing areas 

    • Set-up inspection team office (lockable, power supplied, available during the entire inspection period, equipped with desks and chairs) 

  • Communications/mobile phone policy 

  • Transportation 

  • Lodging and meals 

  • Security and badging procedures 

E. Physical layout 

  • Provide facility layout or comprehensive list indicating the following: 

    • Declared DOC/PSF facility(s) 

    • Schedule 2/Schedule 3 facility(s) (if any) 

    • Common infrastructure (e.g., QC/R&D laboratories, waste treatment, maintenance, warehouses, pilot facilities, medical facilities, etc.) 

    • Non-declarable facilities (e.g., formulation, polymers, inorganic chemicals, etc.) 

    • Other companies/facilities which may be physically located within the same boundary, but may not (operationally) form part of the facility 

    • GPS reading point (if coordinates are declared) 

F. Detailed information about the chemicals produced at the facility 

  • Types of organic chemicals produced (expressed in terms of PGC) 

  • List any Scheduled chemicals at the facility even if below declaration threshold 

  • Quantities related to declared/declarable activities (indicate any changes in relation to the declared data) 

    • Aggregate amount of production of DOC: (expressed in terms of codes B31, B32, B33) 

    • Aggregate amount of production of PSF chemicals: (expressed in terms of codes B31, B32, B33) 

    • Approximate number of facilities producing DOC/PSF chemicals 

    • Number of PSF facilities 

G. Detailed information about the facilities 

  • Consider inclusion of the following information for each DOC/PSF facility: 

    • Chemical production quantities per facility (e.g., annual summary) 

    • Types of chemical reaction(s) 

    • Main process and downstream processes (e.g., filtration, distillation, centrifugation, etc.) 

    • Materials of construction (e.g., SS, CS, Hastelloy, etc.) 

    • Mode of operation: batch/continuous 

    • Dedicated/multipurpose 

    • Type of control (e.g., manual, automatic, etc.) 

    • Associated infrastructure (e.g., tank farms, laboratories, etc.) 

    • Specific safety features (e.g., detectors, PPE) 

H. Records to be reviewed 

  • The records review process is not part of the PIB and therefore these documents should not be included in the PIB material. 

  • It is highly recommended to have these documents ready at the beginning of the inspection, to optimize the inspection process. 

  • The following is a non-exhaustive list of relevant records generally requested and accessed by OPCW inspectors during the records review process 

Record Name 

Purpose 

ISO or other certifications and Business Registration documentation 

To verify name, owner, and address of the facility 

Production records/SAP system and methodology of record capturing  

To verify the aggregate amount of the declared DOCs 

Hard copy of production records such as batch log sheets, production orders 

To verify the consistency of production data 

Complete list of chemicals handled at the facility 

To verify the absence of Schedule 1 chemicals and undeclared declarable schedule chemicals and activities at facility 

Records of activities related to undeclared Schedule chemical present at the facility (if any) 

To verify if the scheduled chemical is below declaration threshold 

  • Other records that might be requested for clarification purposes are as follows: 

Record Name 

Purpose 

Technical data (e.g., SDS of the chemicals) 

To verify whether a chemical is a DOC or PSF or the composition of a mixture 

Basic chemistry involved 

In rare cases to verify the potential production of unavoidable scheduled chemical as by products or given the presence of schedule chemical to justify its presence 

Waste analysis 

To verify absence of any undeclared scheduled chemicals 

List of acronyms 

Acronym 

Definition 

CWC 

Chemical Weapon Convention 

DOC 

Discrete Organic Chemicals 

ISP 

Inspected State Party 

PIB 

Pre-Inspection Briefing 

PPE 

Personal Protection Equipment 

PSF 

An unscheduled discrete organic chemical containing the elements  

phosphorus sulfur or fluorine 

VA 

Verification Annex 

POE 

Point of Entry 

CS 

Carbon Steel 

SS 

Stainless Steel 

OCPF 

Other Chemicals Production Facility 

SDS 

Safety Data Sheet 

PGC 

Product Group Code 

References 

Further examples and guidance on how to prepare a PIB: 

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