Chiamaka Ajeamo
Following the rampant cases of gas explosions across the country, the Nigeria Liquefied Petroleum Gas Association (NLPGA) has called for stringent enforcement of Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) standards and code of practice within the industry and across the country.
A statement by NLPGA President, Mr. Nuhu Yakubu, said the call for enforcement of LPG standards is coming on the heels of the last Monday’s gas explosion which occurred in Lafia, Nasarawa State, claiming scores of lives.
Yakubu warned that without this measure, the proliferation of substandard and undocumented gas facilities and infrastructure would remain a recurrent issue, which ultimately undermines the efforts of law abiding industry practitioners.
Yakubu stated that the NLPGA had in recent times partnered with government regulatory agencies, including the Standards Organisation of Nigeria (SON) and the Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR) to draft and develop processes and procedures to ensure that best practices are upheld within the Industry to ensure the safety of lives and property.
The association while commiserating with the affected families who lost their loved ones to the incident, declared that it would improve its personnel training and education on the three overarching industry safety objectives; safe handling and best practices in LPG, prevention of loss of containment (Gas leaks) and successful disaster management as these remained the recurrent issues in all gas explosion accidents.
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The NLPGA President, however, reinforced that the use of gas remained safe, explaining that, there have been gas facilities that have functioned within the LPG industry for more than 30 years without incidents, maintaining that, the main issues centered around misuse or poorly trained personnel.
Despite these challenges, the NLPGA boss commended the improved efforts of regulators in assisting to share similar reports of earlier incidents with stakeholders, saying this has helped the association enhance its delivery of training programs geared towards addressing some of these gaps in order to improve safety practices, especially during product handling or transfer operations.