The Senate Standing Committee on Petroleum met here Monday. Secretary Petroleum and Natural Resources, Sikandar Sultan Raja informed the Senate panel that the government would not force the contractors of oil tankers to implement technical standards at once to avoid petroleum shortage within the country. He said if oil tankers go on strike, the petrol on OMCs outlets would dry down in three days. The committee meeting was chaired by Mir Israrullah Khan Zehri. He said the government has two options; either to ban all the unfit oil tankers from supplying fuel or to stop unfit oil tankers in different phases.
He said agenda of the meeting with stakeholders is to devise a mechanism to bind oil tankers to ensure compliance with the technical standards for road transport vehicles for transportation of petroleum products, as was earlier suggested by OGRA in 2009 on the advice of OCAC and Oil Marketing Companies (OMCs).
He said that the meeting would be attended by representatives of OGRA, National Highway Authority (NHA), Motorway Police and Explosive Department. According to Ministry of Petroleum, petroleum storage is 11 days with out the four ships at seaport while there is 18 days storage of diesel in the country. The government had empowered the OGRA for implementation of safety measures agreed with OCAC and OMCs but the regulator failed to ensure oversight. Chairperson OGRA Uzma Adil Khan admitted that the OGRA could not implement the technical standards framed for lorries carrying highly inflammable petroleum products. "We (OGRA) and other government departments showed relaxation in implementing relevant rules and regulation on transports carrying petroleum products," she added. She shifted the blame to OCAC for non-compliance with the safety rules and regulations proposed by the committee itself that have not been implemented in five years. Uzma further said that the OGRA''s main responsibility was to ensure oversight of the oil and gas pipelines and not of oil tankers. However, she explained, the task to oversee the transportation of petroleum product was also given to OGRA.
She said the authority carried out a survey by independent third-party inspectors and found that 11,704 oil tankers have been registered with OMCs but 4,650 vehicles were fit to carry the petroleum products. She said this presumed that only 40 percent oil tankers comply with the safety standards framed by OGRA. She further said that 38 percent oil tankers have road fitness certificates, while 44 percent comply with the rules and regulations of NHA. She said 99 percent of these oil tankers have certificates from explosive departments and she did not know about the criteria for issuance of these certificates. She disclosed that the oil tanker, which met an incident in Ahmadpur East, had a fake fitness certificate from explosive department.
Minister for Petroleum and Natural Resources Shahid Khaqan Abbasi informed the committee that provincial government of Punjab is investigating the incident of Ahmadpur and an FIR was registered. In addition, Lahore High Court also took suo motu notice of the incident. He said he was ready to give an in-camera briefing to parliamentarians about the government''s strategy to enforce required safety standards on transportation on petroleum products. Meanwhile, the secretary petroleum disclosed that the government has been working on two pipeline projects within the country which would reduce the dependence on oil transportation by road.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2017