The Department of Petroleum Resources has sealed 30 filling stations and eight liquefied Petroleum Gas outlets for various offences, including contravening safety procedures put in place in Akwa Ibom.
It explained that the filling stations and LPG outlets were sealed for offences ranging from under dispensing, operating without valid sales and storage licenses, poor housekeeping, poorly sited, and illegally operating in the state.
The state’s DPR Operations Controller, Victor Ohwodiasa, who disclosed this on Thursday while briefing journalists in Eket, headquarters of Eket Local Government Area of the state on Thursday, said that the department would intensify its enforcement operations across the state.
He stated that the DPR would continue ensuring the safety of Nigerians irrespective of their locations by enforcing compliance to operational guidelines put in place by relevant stakeholders in the oil and gas industry.
“I can authoritatively tell you that we have sealed 30 filling stations and eight gas outlets for operating illegally in the state. We can not continue to allow illegality because we don’t need an accident to occur first, we just have to be proactive instead of being reactive.
“It is going to be a continuous fight because people are constraints because of the environmental condition, economic hardship, they want to cut corners and that is why we have regulators to check them,” Ohwodiasa said.
He said that the filling stations sealed were located in Eket, Uyo, and Onna Local Government Areas of the state, and that more are been targeted by DPR team.
“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.
He said that 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.
