UEIL News Committees and Sections
Competition Committee In close collaboration with the Technical Committee, the Competition Committee has continued its actions to fight against uncompetitive behaviour in the market.
Its actions do not only concern vehicle manufacturers. The Competition Committee also intercedes with tractor manufacturers and plans to act, very soon, in the machine tools sector.
At the same time, the Competition Committee has proceeded with lobbying to defend the interest of our businesses. A meeting was held with DG Competition. We are always in contact with other stakeholders in order to develop a synergy and to increase the impact of our actions.
HSE Committee On 26 January, 19 people from 8 countries attended the UEIL HSE meeting in Brussels to discuss, as usual, a wide range of subjects, including:
Irritation test continuation of ionic mixtures Water miscible metalworking fluids (MWF) are formulated with a varying number of acids and bases, both organic and inorganic. These acids and bases will undergo simple neutralisation reactions in situ to form salts, resulting in an equilibrium ionic mixture in the product as supplied to customers. Some of the starting acids and bases in MWFs are significantly irritant or corrosive, and carry the appropriate classifications. However, the product formulations do not generally exhibit the same properties or to the same degree.
A project was initiated to identify the hazards of these ionic mixtures so that the appropriate entries can be made in section 3 of the Safety Data Sheet (SDS) and the overall hazard classification of the product can be derived. The initial phase of the project will focus on irritancy, first on skin and secondly on
eyes which are among the key concerns in the industrial environment when handling MWFs. The Dutch research institute, TNO-Triskelion, performed state of the art non-animal skin-irritation tests. The tests were done under GLP conditions.
Twelve samples were tested and the results were discussed in detail during the September 2010 meeting of the HSE committee, the full report has been made available to all UEIL members. The results can be used by member companies as an additional tool to make their SDS.
The second step to perform eye irritation test (on chicken eyes of freshly slaughtered chickens) was unanimously agreed upon by all members. The test results are expected to become available during summer.
4th Symposium on Metal Removal Fluids, Barcelona, 14-16 September 2011 The preparations are on track and a workgroup with members from ILMA, STLE and UEIL has monthly conference calls to discuss the programme and the selection of speakers, about the main focuses of the agenda, about which sponsors to be approached, etc. This global symposium will give the latest information with regard to: Innovation, Application and Regulation within the Metalworking Fluids Industry. Please go to
www.ueil.org/symposium for further information.
Technical Committee Since the last newsletter, the Committee met in Brussels on 26 January 2011.
Some member Companies of UEIL have supported the organisation for many years, but are not necessarily involved in the automotive sector. Therefore, it was recently proposed to the Board of Directors that the name be changed from the Automotive Committee to the Technical Committee; a proposal that they approved. Although the main emphasis and expertise of the
Committee remain in the automotive sector, this now means that any member Company can contact us for assistance, should they have an issue to resolve.
Currently, the Committee is involved with one major OEM, concerning their requirements for a gearbox and the availability of a rebrand for the independent blenders.
As previously stated, UEIL has established a good working relationship with three of the major additive companies; however, this cannot be said of the fourth company and, despite our best endeavours, this continues to be the case.
The Board of Directors did not accept the verdict of the report prepared by ATIEL’s Special Task Force, which resulted in a meeting in Brussels on 15 March 2011, attended by UEIL, UKLA and several of the major oil companies, who are members of ATIEL and who also sit on the Executive Committee. It has since been decided to set up a joint ATIEL/UEIL Taskforce to look into options to improve compliance with the Code of Practice, by enhancing current audit procedure, and to make recommen- dations on how to deal with parties who were found to be non-compliant.
In the last Newsletter, the Committee reported that supplies of base oil, additives and their components were very tight throughout Europe and, indeed, the world in general, and it envisaged that this would continue to be the case for the medium future. Unfortunately, this has proved to be so.
LUBE MAGAZINE No .103 JUNE 2011
37
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