Kochil: Oil companies including Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) have standard operational procedures for removing LPG tankers involved in accidents and they vary from situation to situation, according to officials.
If it is an accident as happened on Wednesday night, they empty the tankers and move the vehicle to the nearest workshop for repairs. But if there is a leak, they usually move to plug the leak and evacuate the product and fill the tanker with water to ensure that it is safe.
“But whatever be the situation, we need the co-operation of the people. They should not crowd the place and should not try to take photographs which can trigger an explosion. They should obey whatever people engaged in damage control ask them to do,” said a senior IOC official.
If tanker mishaps result in a fire, the first priority would be to control the fire and retrieve as much product as possible. “We also resort to controlled flaring of the gas if the situation demands so. The reaction varies from situation to situation,” said the official.
The official denied allegations that they reacted late to the accident site at Maradu. “The incident occurred as the workers were returning after their work at Udayamperoor plant on Wednesday. They alerted the plant manager and senior IOC officials and we swung into action immediately with the assistance of police and fire force. There weren’t many workers there since it was Deepavali,” he said. He added, “The whole LPG was completely evacuated using people from here itself”.
He said that oil companies have mechanisms to know whether a tanker is empty or filled. “We did know that the tanker in the accident was a filled one and the confusion was created by some of the people on the spot. We can identify from our systems and also there are papers in the vehicle to show it also. Moreover the pressure gauge and temperature gauge of the tanker also show it,” he said.
