There is now a ray of hope for victims and business owners who suffered injury, loss of life, and loss of millions in the El Pecos and Kleen Rite explosions. Energy Minister Nicole Olivierre said she will be taking a note to Cabinet this month, as she looks to “make traction in an industry which has inherent risks and dangers.”
In the case of the El Pecos explosion, which occurred 13 months ago, 12 people were injured. John Soo Ping Chow, who sustained severe burns in the explosion, died four months later on June 5, at the Jackson Memorial Hospital in Miami. While in the Kleen Rite explosion several people were injured.
Olivierre told the GML Enterprise Desk that “another explosion must not be allowed to happen.”
Since the Kleen Rite explosion she has taken a keen interest in the LPG industry. “I was very concerned about the frequency at which it was happening, two was just too much and a life was lost. This is a serious matter, one fatality is just too much.”
Relatives of Soo Ping Chow and the owner of El Pecos, Richard Camacho, as well as employees injured in the El Pecos blast have been awaiting closure, but fire chief Kenny Gopaul claimed the missing link in the investigation was the forensic report.
Olivierre said she understands that the “forensic department is overwhelmed and has a backlog,” but said she was not in a position to leave this issue hanging.
“We need to recognise there are dangers, we have been blessed so far and there has been no major disaster, but we don’t want to fall prey to that.”
Under the Petroleum Act, LPG operators fall under the purview of the Ministry of Energy.
Olivierre said she remains concerned that the forensic analysis requested on the hose which was being used during delivery of the gas at the El Pecos explosion has not been completed.
But with or without it, she said, she has mandated staff at her ministry “to prepare a note to Cabinet with the findings into the fatal explosion which it has compiled so far, with reports from the Ministry, NP, the Fire Service and the Police Service.”
That note, she said, would also include some of the eyewitness accounts of what happened on February 5, 2015.
She insisted “a lack of a forensic report should not delay any action since we cannot afford for this to happen again.
We need some traction, there has been a lax attitude to the industry which is not appropriate and that must change.”
Olivierre said she was hoping once the note goes before the Cabinet that there will be some further direction on what should be done in terms of regulating an industry which has “inherent dangers and which is inherently risky.”
Although she intends to go to Cabinet on the issue, the minister said she was also being “pro-active” and has written to NP, Ramco and North Plant LPG Co-operative Society Ltd giving them two weeks to provide information on “their bulk customer data base, so we will know all the sites, those known to us and those which we are not aware of, so that we can ensure our inspectors can visit each site to ensure they are complying with the necessary API regulations and to allow us to get an idea of the total state of the industry.”
She said in the recent past, several “restaurants have been blossoming and we are not sure whether they receive bulk LPG. If there is a large number we may need to go on a communication blitz to tell them what they need to do to ensure that they comply with the regulations.”
API standards require among other things that the tank is an approved vessel from an approved supplier, that there is a firewall around the tank, and that there is a minimum distance between the tank and any building on the premises.
She said while it was understandable that some of these businesses may be renting from landlords, the onus is on them to ensure that the proper safety measures are in place.