YARA COMPLIES TO STRICT STEL REQUIREMENTS FOR 8+ GASES

Yara International is a global producer of crop nutrients with 26 production plants around the world, including its Siilinjärvi site in Finland. Siilinjärvi employs 700 people and is home to the European Union’s only phosphate mine — one of the largest open pit mines in Finland — and a fertilizer and phosphoric acid plant. Phosphoric acid is widely used in animal feed to enhance its nutritional value, ensure consistent quality and support the health and growth of livestock.

Due to the nature of operations at the Siilinjärvi site, various chemicals are stored, producing both toxic gases like hydrogen sulphide (H₂S) and flammable gases like ammonia (NH₃). An in-house firefighting team monitors for leaks and is regularly trained to respond to alarms. To enhance gas detection, incident response, communication and regulatory compliance, Yara Finland Siilinjärvi sought to upgrade from traditional, non-connected detectors to a more advanced solution.

Left: EXO area monitor in pump mode. Right: G7 multi-gas wearables in multi-charger station.

Yara worked with Blackline’s Finnish distributor Sarlin to adopt Blackline’s cloud-connected G7c wearables and EXO area monitors. Together, they have enabled Yara to:

• Identify gas leaks
  Blackline has an advanced sensor portfolio with a broad selection of up to 20 gas sensors, plus a gamma sensor to choose from. Swappable cartridges mean sensors can be tailored to the situation or facility without the need to purchase additional base devices.
  
  
• Understand and report on gas exposure
  In Finland, gas exposure is regulated by national limits, including Time-Weighted Averages (TWA) and Short-Term Exposure Limits (STEL). G7 multi-gas detectors support compliance and safety by accurately monitoring and automatically recording these levels.
  
  
• Expedite emergency response
  Each department at the Siilinjärvi site, including the firefighting team, has its own command center. From there, powered by the Blackline Live cloud-based platform, they can stay connected with every worker through voice communication and a live map view of each worker’s location and safety status.

Adopting Blackline’s cloud-connected solution has helped Yara Finland in a variety of safety situations:

• Lone worker safety—in one incident an employee was working alone in a lab when the glass instrumentation exploded and cut her arm. They pulled the SOS latch on their G7 device and help was dispatched straight away to deal with the serious injury.
  
  
• Prevention of STEL overages—on many occasions a contractor on site has been wearing their G7 gas detector and it has detected STEL had been reached. The control room contacted the contractors and pulled them out of the environment.
  
  
• Leak management— EXO monitors help spot gas leaks in specific zones, especially during construction or upgrades. In one case, they detected 1,000 ppm of ammonia in an unexpected spot, prompting the team to quickly extend a hose and lower exposure risk. The team also mounted a G7c wearable on a drone, hovering it over suspected leaks for remote detection—an inventive move that caught the attention of the local safety authority.
  
  
• Emergency response—a G7-multi gas detector is kept in the fire truck for when the team responds to alerts, so they know exactly what hazards are present when they arrive on scene.
  
  
• Community protection—Yara’s Fire Chief was deployed to join a Finnish team battling wildfires in Greece and Portugal, using a Blackline G7 to track carbon monoxide exposure. Since CO can penetrate respiratory gear, the location-stamped, cloud-stored data was crucial for assessing risk and protecting responders.