Final Report: Mitigating the Insider Threat at Chemical Facilities with Precursors to Explosives

Minimizing the Insider Threat in the supply chain of precursors to explosives was a two year (February 2017-May 2019) long research project, funded by the European Commission through the CBRN Action Plan specifically the Action Plan on enhancing security to explosives and the European program for critical infrastructure protection. The project was motivated by a shared concern from stakeholders (policy makers, regulators, industry representatives and employees) that certain groups (i.e. insiders) would still have access to precursors to explosives, in possibly even larger quantities than the general public despite Regulation No. 98/2013 being enforced throughout the EU MS. The common conviction was that Annex 1 and 2 of Regulation No. 98/2013 limits the use of identified chemical precursors to explosives to the general public and registered professional users, but not to employees and individuals from the supply chain. This project has been devised in order to close the gap, conceptually, thereby increasing public security within the EU in full compliance with the fundamental rights of its citizens. Due to the widespread global use of some of the chemicals listed in Annex 1 and 2 of Regulation No. 98/2013, regulating their appropriate usages from both the general public’s as well as industry perspective should be at the core of industry values. Hence, industries have a responsibility to guard against potential security threats emanating from “insiders” with malevolent intentions, including individual’s intent on committing acts of sabotage or theft. To identify relevant insider threats and sensitize stakeholders to them, the project explored four major sub categories in the supply chain: the production, transportation, storage and professional users for three chemical precursors (Nitric Acid, Hydrogen Peroxide, Ammonium Nitrate); each of which constitutes a potential security threat in terms of explosive precursors (TNT, TATP, ANFO). The project builds on the already existing regulation on the Marketing and Use of Explosive Precursors Regulation No. 98/2013 by utilizing its fundamental framework (the Annexes) and extending it to cover the whole supply chain (i.e. insiders). As an attachment to this report, the final result comprises of a Handbook of Smart Measures to serve as holistic interactive mechanism for industry to use to help mitigate against insider threats in the chemical industry.