The Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR) has expressed concern over the unsafe practice in the downstream sector in the country.
The DPR Director, Engr. Sarki Auwalu, who said this on Friday in Benin during the 2020 annual meeting with petroleum products and gas marketers in Edo and Delta states, urged operators to imbibe a safety culture with a view to minimizing accidents in their operations.
Represented by DPR Zonal Controller Warri, Ayokanmi Ayodeji, he noted that some operators in the petroleum and gas business do not comply with DPR guidelines of safe operation in their business premises.
“Operators must develop a safety culture embedded at all levels of its workforce. Compliance with rules and regulations promotes safe operation.”
“Safe operation is very important to us and it can only be achieved through compliance with rules and regulation. If companies complied with safety procedure, all the accidents that had happened in petroleum and gas companies would have been averted,” he said.
Also speaking, DPR Benin operation controller, Ebi Ogiowo, said if recommendations from past meetings were observed, it will go a long way in reducing accidents in the sector.
In his lecture titled ‘ensuring safe operation in the downstream sector of the petroleum industry in the global current challenge’, Ogiowo said DPR lays emphasis on safe operation and prevention of disaster in the downstream sector.
He identified unsafe practice such as discharging petroleum products without safety precautions device, operating without adequate fire fighting tools, working on an already weak platform and exposed pipe as some of the major causes of the accident in the petroleum and gas business environment.
He said as part of preventive measures, operators should always carry out weekly and monthly audit/inspection of facilities, maintenance of facilities, adequate training and retraining of staff, conduct hazard identification, and risk assessment periodically as well as reporting accidents to DPR for action.
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