Oil & Gas
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The Department of Petroleum Resources is concerned over the traffic jam at depot which can pose security problem
| By Anayo Ezugwu | Oct. 20, 2014 @ 01:00 GMT |
THE Department of Petroleum Resources, DPR, has charged owners of petroleum products’ depot in the country to put effective measures in place to enhance the control of trucks in and around their depots because of safety and security reasons. George Osahon, director, DPR, at this year’s annual general meeting of DPR, on Friday, October 3, said the way and manner trucks are causing serious traffic logjams around depots, especially in Apapa area of Lagos was unacceptable.
Osahon stated that in view of the present security challenges in the country, depot owners should reinforce access control of both vehicular and human traffic into their facilities. The DPR boss, who was represented at the event by Oliver Okparaojiako, head of downstream operations of the agency, also recommended enhanced screening by the depot owners, through the use of electronic gadgets.
“We urge depot owners to report all pipeline and equipment breakdown, rehabilitation and upgrading work in their depots as they occur or before undertaking them as the case may be. This will help secure timely approval in the case of rehabilitation or upgrade. Accidents/incidents at depots are to be reported to us within the shortest time possible, ideally less than 24 hours after they occur. Regulatory sanctions will be meted out to operators that conceal accidents in their facilities or deliberately mis-inform us contrary to the provision of the Mineral Oil Safety Regulations as amended in 1997,” he said.
For importers of petroleum products, Osahon charged them to ensure that their certificates of quality bear the full identity of the issuing refinery/laboratory clearly written in English and endorsed by competent chemist.
Also, Chioma Njoku, Lagos zonal operations controller of the DPR, said the agency was impressed with the sustained increase in the number of depots operating in the Lagos zone, adding that at the moment, the zone has 65 licensed depots, with another four at various stages of construction. She charged the depot operators to ensure that the operations of these facilities would continue to be in conformity with the country’s petroleum laws, regulations and international best practice.
“Despite the recorded strides, there are however, still some pockets of discrepancies that we need to address in order to ensure that we did not back track on our successes. For instance, despite warnings to desist from such practice, we still find that some operators have continued to sell petroleum products to unlicensed distributors and industrial consumers,” she said.
Njoku said that since the Lagos zone is the gateway for more than 80 percent of products importation into the country, the importance of product quality control to the agency could not be over-emphasised to ensure that products received and distributed to the public meet the specification. She reminded the operators of the recent security breach at one of the product depots and another close to a gas depot and urged them to regard these incidences as wake-up call for them to step up security around their facilities.
The agency recently launched a digital portal to grant oil and gas industry services permits and licences, OGISP. The digital portal would enable DPR to reduce undue delays in processing documents. Prior to the launch of the OGISP, the regulatory agency activities were done manually, resulting in undue delays in processing of documents, loss of documents that gave room to unnecessary bottlenecks, which adversely impacted its activities.
With the launch of the OGISP, issuance of e-portal, processing and issuance of oil and gas industry service permits to applicants will henceforth be done electronically. This also implies that all applicants seeking renewals of their licenses or applying for new ones would be required to apply online with all applicable requirements and such permits would be processed and issued within seventy hours by the DPR. The launch of the e-portal, according to the DPR, marked the beginning of full digitalisation of its entire licencing and permitting system, and was geared towards improved service delivery and operational efficiency.
The oil and gas industry service permit is a regulatory requirement for Nigerian registered companies seeking to provide services in the oil and gas industry. It has three main categories, namely: service-general, major and specialised and attract statutory fees of N500, N2,500 and N7,500, respectively.
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