Cefas Regulations

The UK regulates the use and discharge of offshore chemicals in the North Sea with a voluntary Offshore Chemical Notification Scheme (OCNS). The Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (MAFF) and the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) operate the scheme jointly. The Norwegian scheme is operated by the SFT and formulations are registered on the CHEMS offshore chemical database.

The old Chemical Notification Scheme only required tests to be carried out on Brown Shrimp Species crangon crangon. Because of non-standard toxicity testing for discharge of chemicals offshore, the industry has now harmonized to one set of tests. This is known as the OSPAR test requirements.

Harmonized PARCOM Testing Requirements

The following tests have to be carried out for each chemical used in the formulation.

Biodegradation BOD (OECD 301D) 28-Day Test

This is monitored with the BOD test which measures how readily the compound is broken down by the activity of organisms. The test is run for 28 days, the percentage broken down is the result, an acceptable result for the North Sea is currently >60%.

Bioaccumulation

The test uses partition coefficients to measure the accumulation of chemicals within living organisms.

Toxicity Tests

These tests measure the capacity of each additive used in the formulation to reduce growth or kill selected marine species. The results are given in ppm, which represents the amount required to kill or reduce growth by 50%.


Tests for each additive used in the Finished Formulation