VATIS UPDATE Article

The Oman Ministry of Environment and Climate Affairs (MECA) has rolled out the second phase of the national strategy for phasing out HCFCs, under which various policy measures will be implemented. Under this phase Oman will drastically cut down the consumption of Hydrochlorofluorocarbons (HCFCs), the ozone depleting substances (ODS) by 2020.

The regulatory measures include ban on the import of bulk HCFC-141b by 2016, import of HCFC-141b-based pre-blended polyols by December 2017, use and import of refrigerants in disposable containers, venting of refrigerants into the atmosphere during servicing and establishment of mandatory refrigerants recovery and recycling, by January 1, 2020.

Oman will also establish quarterly reporting on the recovered, recycled and reused refrigerants and stock of unusable refrigerants by January 1, 2020. The implementation of the stage two of the strategy will phase-out 5.32 ozone depleting potential (ODP) tonnes of HCFCs resulting in a 35% reduction by 2020.

Oman’s HCFC consumption of 20.38 ODP tonnes in 2014 was lower than the maximum allowable consumption proposed by Oman of 28.32 ODP tonnes for 2015-18 and 20.46 ODP tonnes for 2019-20. UNIDO clarified that the lower consumption in 2014 was due to large amounts of HCFCs imported in 2011 and 2012 as stocks for use in subsequent years.