With less than a month to go before September 30, 2026, a group of mandatory chemical safety production standards will officially take effect. The most closely watched is the Criteria for Identifying Major Production Safety Accident Hazards in Chemical and Hazardous Chemical Production and Operation Enterprises (AQ 3067–2026).
This is not an ordinary standard revision. From the 2017 trial version’s “20 items” to today’s mandatory standard’s “53 items,” what has changed is not only the number of clauses, but also an overall upgrade in regulatory logic and enforcement stringency. For chemical enterprises, this means the discretionary space of “just rectify after being found” is narrowing. Once a major hazard is identified, enterprises will face stricter enforcement and clearer legal liability.
Fact Check: What Exactly Has Changed
AQ 3067–2026 was issued by the Ministry of Emergency Management in March 2026 and will officially take effect on September 30, 2026. The original 2017 trial version will be repealed at the same time.
Compared with the old version, four changes are most critical:
First, upgraded legal effect: from “trial guidance” to “mandatory standard.” The old “20 Chemical Items” was a departmental normative document with a trial nature, and there was some flexibility in enforcement. The new version is a mandatory production safety industry standard with mandatory force. Enterprises must comply, and regulators must enforce according to this standard.
Second, expanded clauses: from 20 to 53 items, covering seven major areas. The old version contained only 20 determination scenarios. The new version systematically sorts out 53 major hazard determination scenarios across seven areas: key personnel, design and planning, process technology, equipment and facilities, production operations, work safety, and safety management. Among them, there are 9 equipment and facilities items, 12 production operations items, 4 work safety items, and 7 safety management items; the rest are distributed among personnel, design, and process technology.
Third, higher personnel thresholds: from “certified for the job” to “dual requirements of education and professional title.” The new version sets dual requirements for principal responsible persons, responsible persons in charge, and full-time production safety management personnel: a college degree or above in a chemical-related major plus an intermediate professional title in a chemical field. Failure of key-position personnel to meet qualification requirements will directly constitute a major hazard.
Fourth, new digital requirements: personnel positioning and monitoring/early warning become hard constraints. The new version explicitly requires that enterprises involving major hazard installations and hazardous chemical processes under priority regulation must establish personnel positioning and monitoring/early warning systems. This is the first time a major hazard determination standard has clearly required digital systems.
In-Depth Analysis: What This Means for Enterprises
Behind these changes is a shift in regulatory thinking from “formal compliance” to “substantive safety.”
In the past, hazard inspections focused more on whether there were systems and records—formal compliance. The new standard strictly examines whether implementation has occurred, whether implementation is adequate, and whether results are good. For example, for interlock bypass, the old version might only check whether there was an approval record. The new version requires complete approval procedures and mandatory restoration as required after bypass; otherwise, it is directly determined to be a major hazard.
In serving chemical enterprises, In-Road has found that many companies’ hazard inspection efforts get stuck precisely at the “implementation” and “results” stages: inspection tasks are assigned but no one accepts them; hazards are reported but no one rectifies them; rectifications are made but no one verifies them; and there is a pile of paper records, but the real situation cannot be clearly explained. After the new standard takes effect, these management blind spots that “look done but are actually not in place” will directly translate into major hazard risks.
The impact also differs by type of enterprise:
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SMEs: Personnel qualification thresholds are the biggest challenge. The education and professional title requirements for principal responsible persons and safety management personnel are a hard weakness for many small and medium-sized chemical enterprises. In the short term, they may need to solve this through personnel adjustment or external hiring.
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Enterprises with aging facilities: Pressure from design/planning and equipment/facilities clauses is greatest. External safety protection distances, dual power supplies, gas detectors, explosion-proof electrical equipment, and other hardware requirements require real investment to upgrade aging facilities.
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Major hazard installation enterprises: Production operations and safety management clauses are the strictest. Tank farm emergency shut-off, interlock management, personnel positioning systems, and other items are must-check items and are also where major hazards are most likely to be identified.
It is worth noting that the implementation of the new standard is not an isolated event. Also taking effect on September 30 are the Safety Code for Equipment Maintenance Operations in Chemical Enterprises (AQ 3026–2026, replacing the 2008 version) and the Requirements for Assigned Responsibility Management of Major Hazard Installations for Hazardous Chemicals (AQ 3072–2026). The three standards take effect simultaneously, forming a complete regulatory closed loop from hazard determination to work management and then to major hazard installation control.
Recommended Responses: What Enterprises Should Do Now
With less than a month before implementation, enterprises are advised to advance three tasks in order of priority:
1.Immediately conduct a standard-based self-inspection to identify gaps. Check item by item against the 53 determination scenarios and form a hazard list and rectification plan. Focus on high-frequency pitfalls such as personnel qualifications, interlock management, tank farm emergency shut-off, and special work approvals. Self-inspection must not remain on paper; it is necessary to verify equipment status, system functions, and record authenticity on site.
2.Prioritize rectification of “hard defect” hazards. For issues that directly constitute major hazards—such as unqualified personnel, safety interlocks not in service, failure of emergency shut-off functions, and failure to implement personnel positioning at major hazard installations—rectification must be completed before implementation or a clear rectification timetable must be established. For hardware upgrades that cannot be completed in the short term, interim control measures must be developed and reported to regulators.
3.Use digital means to make hazard inspection and remediation truly effective. The 53 determination scenarios cover seven areas. Relying solely on manual inspection and paper records makes it difficult to achieve full coverage, timely tracking, and traceability. Many enterprises’ hazard inspection remains in a state of “inspected, recorded, but unknown whether rectified”—exactly the “formal compliance” the new standard targets.
The In-Road Safety Management System addresses this pain point by building the 53 determination criteria of AQ 3067–2026 into its hazard inspection module. Enterprises can directly use the standard checklist to conduct standard-based self-inspection. The system automatically generates inspection tasks and pushes them to responsible persons. Hazards are managed through an online closed loop from discovery, reporting, rectification to acceptance, with records, timestamps, and responsible persons at every step, thoroughly solving the problems of “inadequate rectification and perfunctory acceptance.”
For several areas emphasized by the new standard, In-Road also provides corresponding module support:
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Special Work Management: Covers online approval for the full process of eight major types of special work, including hot work, confined space, and work at height. Work permits are automatically linked to risk identification and safety measure confirmation, reducing violations such as “work first, permit later” and “measures not implemented” from the source, directly corresponding to the work safety clauses of the new standard.
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Personnel Positioning and Monitoring/Early Warning: For major hazard installation enterprises, it provides real-time personnel positioning, electronic geofencing, overstaffing alerts, emergency rescue trajectory playback, and other functions, meeting the new standard’s mandatory requirements for personnel positioning and monitoring/early warning systems.
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Interlock Management: Provides full-process online management of safety interlock bypass, approval, and restoration. Interlock bypass must go through approval procedures, and automatic reminders for restoration are sent upon expiration, preventing “bypass without restoration, restoration without verification,” directly corresponding to the major hazard determination scenarios for interlock management in production operations.
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Major Hazard Installation Management: Supports major hazard installation identification, classification, implementation of assigned responsibilities, monitoring data integration, and early warning management, complementing the simultaneously implemented AQ 3072–2026 Requirements for Assigned Responsibility Management of Major Hazard Installations for Hazardous Chemicals.
Based on In-Road’s practice serving chemical enterprises, after digitizing and streamlining hazard inspection standards, the completion rate of standard-based self-inspection increased from less than 60% to over 95%, and the average hazard rectification cycle was shortened by about 40%. More importantly, during regulatory inspections, there is no longer a need to search through large amounts of paper records; the system can directly export a compliant hazard inspection and remediation ledger.
Conclusion
From 20 items to 53 items, from a trial document to a mandatory standard, the implementation of AQ 3067–2026 marks a new stage of stricter, more detailed, and more substantive chemical safety regulation. For enterprises, compliance is not the goal; safety is. The pressure brought by the new standard should ultimately be transformed into motivation to improve safety management. Rather than scrambling at the last minute before an inspection, it is better to use this standard implementation as an opportunity to systematically review shortcomings in safety management and use digital means to make hazard inspection and remediation solid, detailed, and fully in place. After all, in the chemical industry, behind every hazard determination criterion are lessons paid for in blood.
