• Aggregates and dredging
• Fisheries Science Partnership
• Offshore Chemical Notification Scheme
  • About OCNS
  • Contact OCNS
  • Guide to chemical registration
  • OCNS ecotoxicology testing
  • Hazard assessment
  • Substitution warning
  • Freqently Asked Questions (FAQs)
  • Downloads and useful links
• Returning tagged fish and shellfish

Biocide Use in Dutch Regulated sector of North Sea (13 April 2010)

On behalf of State Supervision of Mines in the Netherlands, last year Cefas asked all suppliers to notify the NL Board of Authorisation of Plant Protection Products (Ctgb) of all offshore chemicals containing biocidal active substances in their composition by the 15^th of September 2009. Now that this notification period has expired, it is no longer possible to notify offshore chemicals containing biocidal substances in this manner. Instead, any current or future authorisation of a biocide must be handled by following the regular authorisation procedure. The list with all notified biocides has been laid down by the Ministry of VROM and has been published by the Ctgb on its website.

Suppliers should note that:

1. The inspection services like State Supervision of Mines (SSM) will use the list for enforcement actions. In general, all chemical products containing biocidal substances without authorisation that are not included on the list will no longer be allowed on the Netherlands market. This is the so-called differentiated enforcement policy which means that those chemical products that are on the list will for the time being be allowed for use on the Netherlands market. However, those on the list will have to follow the authorisation procedure at a certain deadline. Further explanation can be found in the attached document (PDF, 57 KB) which was presented by the Netherlands at the Plenary Meeting of the Offshore Industry Committee of OSPAR in Oslo, 1- 5 March 2010.
2. From a survey of registered chemicals made by Cefas on behalf of SSM, it is clear that certain biocidal substances are present on the Cefas data base that were not notified to the Ctgb before the 15^th of September 2009. Cefas is currently contacting the suppliers of such substances in order to establish whether their biocidal activity is a primary or secondary function. (For example, a corrosion inhibitor may contain an active biocidal substance that the supplier has deliberately added to function as a biocide e.g. in the case of Microbial Induced Corrosion or MIC. In such cases, the primary function of the substance is as a biocide. On the other hand, some of these corrosion inhibitors do contain biocidal substances that were not deliberately added to act as a biocide. In this case the biocide function of such a substance is a secondary function).
   • Those contacted should respond to Cefas before the 12^th of May 2010. Suppliers who have not been contacted before 1^st May, and who believe that they have a product that includes a biocide that has not been notified, should contact Cefas immediately by e-mail, using BIOCIDE as the subject line of the message.
   • If those contacted fail to respond to Cefas before 12^th of May 2010, SSM will classify the offshore chemicals containing the identified substances having a potential biocidal function as biocides not notified to the Ctgb. This will mean that these offshore chemicals will not be allowed for use on - and offshore the Netherlands.