Chemical Park Security: 24/ 7 Central Command Centers Handle Over 200,000 Calls a Year
04.07.2026 - 01:03:57 | boerse-global.de
When two chemical incidents struck within 24 hours in early July, the value of permanent crisis communication became starkly clear. On 2 July, sulfuric acid leaked from a chemical plant in Mönchengladbach-Odenkirchen, injuring one person who was rushed to a specialised hospital. Firefighters managed to prevent the chemical from seeping into the sewage system. The following day, a corrosive liquid escaped inside a storage facility at Logport Duisburg, contaminating ten people who required decontamination. Some 90 firefighters secured the remaining roughly 100 litres in collection basins.
These events underline a reality for Germany’s CHEMPARK network, which operates sites in Leverkusen, Dormagen and Krefeld-Uerdingen. The three locations house around 60 plants and employ 12,000 people in Dormagen alone. Their safety architecture rests on three 24-hour security centres – one per site – that together field more than 200,000 calls annually. Tasks range from access monitoring to coordinating emergency responders.
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Each location also maintains its own in-house fire brigade with approximately 450 personnel and over 130 specialised vehicles. They respond to more than 1,000 call-outs every year. On top of that, dedicated emergency medical services with ambulances and on-site emergency doctors operate at every site. Crisis management relies on more than 300 trained staff who complete 40 to 50 drills and training sessions annually.
But physical protection does not end at the factory gate. The EU’s NIS-2 Directive now forces manufacturing companies to treat IT and operational-technology (OT) security as a single, holistic concern. The directive’s urgency is backed by a sobering estimate: in 2025, roughly nine out of ten companies are believed to have suffered cyberattacks, inflicting enormous economic damage.
As a result, structured background screenings of business partners are becoming standard procedure. Swiss-based service provider Validato, for example, offers checks that cover sanctions lists, criminal records and adverse-media screening. Meanwhile, external validation programmes for production equipment are gaining traction. AGC Pharma Chemicals recently conducted such tests for a new active-pharmaceutical-ingredient plant in Barcelona – an illustration of how quality assurance is being woven into the chemical-pharmaceutical supply chain.
