TheCable

The Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR), has sealed 30 filling stations and eight liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) outlets for operating illegally in Akwa Ibom.

Victor Ohwodiasa, the state operations controller, speaking to newsmen on Thursday said the filling stations and LPG outlets were sealed for offences ranging from under dispensing, operating without valid sales and storage license, poor housekeeping, poorly sited and illegally operating in the state.

Ohwodiasa said DPR will henceforth not allow any form of illegality in the state in order to prevent accidents that may occur.

He said the filling stations sealed were located in Eket, Uyo and Onna LGAs of the state but that DPR intends to touch more LGAs in the state.

“I can authoritatively tell you that we have sealed 30 filling stations and 8 gas outlets for operating illegally in the state. We cannot continue to allow illegality because we don’t need accidents to occur first, we just have to be proactive instead of being reactive,” Ohwodiasa said.

“It is going to be a continuous fight because people are constrained because of the environmental condition, economic hardship, they want to cut corners and that is why we have regulators to check them.

“We are drawing a plan to touch all the 31 LGAs of the state, cutting across not just filling stations but gas outlets so that they can have the feel of our presence in the state.”

Ohwodiasa said the department would be proactive in order to ensure that gas retail outlets and gas plants were operating within safety procedures that govern the oil and gas industry.

He said DPR would sensitise retail outlets operators and gas plants because some of them ventured into the business ignorantly.

“Nobody will want to go into business without conducting due diligence, feasibility study or safety audit to ensure that what are the safety implications of my actions or inactions.

“We need to educate them because nobody wants to kill himself, nobody wants to invest in a facility and allow the facility to go down overnight. So, we need to continue to educate them on the safety implications of what they are doing wrongly and the need for them to correctively do it, so that we will not have ugly incident in the state.”

Ohwodiasa said the department will partner with town planning authorities to discourage citing of gas or filling stations in residential areas and encouraged residents to report any perceived illegal activity in filling stations and gas plants to DPR for further action.