LPG TERMINAL’S SAFETY QUESTIONED

A PRESS release issued by a party-list congressman that reported alleged damages suffered by a liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) terminal in San Fabian due to earthquake stunned the Department of Energy (DOE) and the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) based in Pangasinan.

Rep. Arnel Ty of the LPG Marketers’ Association (LPG-MA) has claimed in his news release that the Bureau of Fire Protection reported that the 90-meter retaining wall of a sand-mounded LPG storage tank inside Pryce Gases’ 6,300-metric ton, marine-fed terminal in San Fabian collapsed during a recent tremor.

A two-inch thick concrete slab casing the sand mound also slipped, the report added. The report on when the earthquake happened however was not indicated in Ty’s report.

“We’re surprised that the DOE, up to now, has not bothered to independently verify the installation’s soundness, despite the crash of a protective structure,” Ty said in a statement.

This prompted Efren Balaoing, director of DOE in Luzon field office to clarify that it’s not his agency but the DENR that issued environmental compliance certificate (ECC) to Pryce Gases Inc.’s LPG terminal in San Fabian.

He said said the concern of DOE is only the quality and quantity of gas but in other aspects like its location, “(it) should be the DENR especially if the concern is about collapsed structure”.

Meanwhile, Leduina Co, provincial environment and natural resources officer in Pangasinan, said in a separate interview that she was also surprised by Ty’s claim, adding that last Friday, an executive of Pryce Gases went to their CENRO office in Dagupan City to pay their annual lease rental on the foreshore area being used by the gas terminal “but nothing was mentioned about such problem”.

She added that she was also with the group of Environmental Management Bureau from their DENR regional office that issues ECCs last week in a forum in a hotel in Dagupan “but none (of this concern) was also mentioned”.

“When did that happen? There was no strong rain that might cause landslide? There was no strong earthquake felt in Pangasinan lately and if there was, it was hardly felt,” Co said.

She also urged the local government unit of San Fabian to check the veracity of the claim.

Balaoing also said the plant’s operations manager recently told him that they would have an expansion of their plant within the same area this year.

Shortly before The PUNCH’S deadline, the management of Pryce Gases Inc.’s LPG terminal in San Fabian issued the followoing statement: “Without downplaying the importance of safety in LPG installations, we clarify that the retaining wall that collapsed is a temporary retaining wall holding the sand mounding in just one side of one of the three storage tanks within the facility (the concerned tank has a capacity of about 2,100 MT of the total 6,300 MT capacity of the facility),” The retaining wall was made temporary by Pryce to provide for future expansion of the facility at the side of the affected tank. Added storage capacity brought about by the expansion would assist in addressing Rep. Ty’s concerns on LPG supply shortages. The retaining walls of the other three sides of the tank, as well as those of the other two tanks, are permanent retaining walls and were not affected. (Tita Roces)

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