• While Siphoning Fuel
What would have turned out as a consuming fire was averted last week at one of the multi billion naira tank farms located at the popular Ibru jetty in Lagos when dare-devil sea robbers came in a two wooden boats to siphon petrol from one of the ships that was discharging the highly inflammable product at the jetty.
However, some of the sea robbers were said to have been burn to death in the inferno which their action ignited.
The fire reportedly started as the robbers were siphoning petrol into the several drums that were loaded on the boat and which were anchored in between the two PMS laden ships. The identity of one of the ships was revealed as MT Althea and was said to have arrived the jetty with 5,000 metric tonnes of PMS.
Shipping Position Weekly confirmed last week that the two vessels were set to discharge products at Zenon tank farm and Ascon oil storage facilities.
According to an eye witness, the fire broke out at about 9pm on Wednesday and raged on for hours until midnight, resisting the futile attempts by the major stakeholders sprawled at the jetty to put it off.
Our correspondent gathered that it eventually took the efforts of the fire fighting team from Capital oil and gas limited who came to the rescue and put out the fire, they were said to have arrived the scene of the fire with two of their trucks passing a hose directly from the Capital oil jetty down to the scene of the fire at Ibru jetty.
Another eye witness told our correspondent that “unfortunately while this fire was going on there was nothing like any assistance from the main stakeholders, almost 70 percent of the people who attacked the fire were the workforce of Capital oil and gas, even though the fire was racing towards the Zenon depot, yet there was no fire marshal or safety officer from the two depots to put it out”
According to him “throughout the duration of the fire, we did not see any safety personnel from Zenon or Ascon oil who are the owners of the product in the two vessels, it simply means that they do not have any hydrant plant in place for such emergencies”.
It was also confirmed that another company, D Jones Energy Limited located at Kirikiri axis of Apapa and even the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA) sent out its fire fighting tug boat to the scene but the action did not help matters because the tug boats did nothing but added to the fire due to lack of foam in the water.
Confirming the incident to Shipping Position Weekly, the Depot Manager of Capital oil and gas limited Mr. Godfrey Okorie said: “We really have to kneel down and thank the almighty God because if eventually these two vessels had caught fire, the whole of Apapa would have been wiped off the map of Lagos state, the problem we are having is that a lot of people go into tank farm operation without getting ready for it, there must be a policy that for you to come into this business, there are some standards that you need to meet. Also, the idea of chandlers coming in with boats should be discouraged, they should not come close to vessels, especially those carrying wet cargoes because it is really not healthy, if that wooden boat was not having sufficient fuel in it, there is no way we would have got this problem” he said.
Speaking further, Okorie advised that “what happened should be an eye opener to other tank farms and jetties, if they have not been taking safety serious, they should step up actions to make sure that safety requirement are maintained, most especially facilities handling PMS, there is need for them to understand the implication of meeting safety requirements, because what happened would have been a great calamity to the nation.”
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