Celebrating the 43rd anniversary of its founding on Feb. 1, President Park Ki-dong of the Korea Gas Safety Corp. (KGS) and other KGS executives attend a ceremony to put a time capsule 200-odd items related to the development of the Korean gas safety industry and the KGS’s history, ,which is to be retrieved in 2074 in celebration of the corporation’s centennial.

KGS President Park Ki-dong. (Photos: KGS)

Entering the year 2017, the Korea Gas Safety Corp. (KGS) has accelerated efforts to ensure the safety of gas facilities. The corporation is also ramping up efforts to secure related technologies to boost gas safety and expand safety facilities. These are in line with the KGS’s goal of realizing gas safety and people’s happiness. 

Celebrating the 43rd anniversary of its founding on Feb. 1, the KGS put in a time capsule 200-odd items related to the development of the Korean gas safety industry and the KGS’s history. The move is part of the corporation’s efforts to preserve the achievements and historical developments the KGS has so far made. The capsule will be to be unveiled in 2074 in celebration of the corporation’s centennial. 

In the time capsule are important documents, including one on the reduction of the occurrence of gas accidents. Gas accidents, which peaked at 577 cases in 1995, had plunged to 116 last year. The corporation saw the gas accident casualty rate, gas accident cases versus 2 million households, drop to the lowest-ever level of 5.47.

The KGS plans to secure technologies to further reduce gas safety-related accidents. Since 2015, the corporation has been implementing a management task to secure the world’s top-ranked 20 technologies by 2020. The global top ranked technologies refer to technologies that have bigger spill-over effects on related industries and are world-class. 

The KGS has 23 promising candidate technologies in four areas – safety technology, safety diagnosis technology, inspection certification, and future energy – in cooperation with in-house and outside experts. 

In December 2015, the corporation secured a defect evaluation technology for polyethylene electronfusion joints using ultrasonic waves, the first of its kind in the world.,Last year, the corporation added three more world-class technologies. 

A pipe defect search technology using multichannel, guided ultrasonic waves. Another technology the KGS secured has an accuracy rate that is 10 times better than the current counterpart. 

The technology is capable of detecting defects two times better. The corporation’s 3rd technology consists of a danger management technology to secure gas safety based on IT convergence, while the 4th is a KGS-Risk-based Management (RBM) system. 

The KGC plans to secure five more technologies this year.

The corporation is building key infrastructure to provide support to secure gas safety technologies. The KGS has built or is building such facilities as the Industry Gas Safety Technology Support Center, which will be dedicated in October. The Energy Safety Test-bed Research Center, dedicated in Yeongweol, Gangwon-do, last October, is the nation’s first super-pressure, ultralow product research institute. 

The KGS is a state-run testing, inspection and education organization under the umbrella of the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy (MOTIE). The role of the corporation, whose existence and functions derive from the three gas laws, including the High Pressure Gas Safety Management Act, is responsible for drawing up gas laws for enactment or revision.