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Yuletide: DPR warns dealers against pump price hike

To forestall illegal adjustment of petroleum products during yuletide, the Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR) yesterday in Enugu announced that the field office would be deploying a special surveillance team to monitor petrol and Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) stations in the state. DPR, however, appealed to petroleum dealers not to engage in any sharp practices that would inflict more pain on residents.

DPR Operations Controller, Enugu Field Office, Mr. Okoro Okechukwu, who made this known during a stakeholders’ workshop in Enugu, said that it was unacceptable for marketers to cheat customers, threatening that any defaulting station would be shutdown forthwith. He also said that the DPR was concerned about proliferation of illegal construction and operation of oil and gas facilities and improper manufacturing of tools and storage facilities by unqualified individuals.

Okechukwu, however, said that the department as part of its statutory roles had initiated safety awareness in handling and marketing of petroleum products especially LPG, saying that the move had already greatly increased safety awareness among operators in the rural areas. He said: “The good news is that most of these challenges have been addressed in the newly launched ‘Minimum Industry Safety Training for Downstream Operators (MISTDO)’ initiative. “All these are innovations that will make for a seamless execution of the DPR mandate of creating business opportunities and as a business enabler in the oil and gas industry in Nigeria.”

In his remark, DPR Manager Operations, Mr. Atilola Akinyemi, said that the department had sought to professionalise the oil and gas industry in order to reduce inherent hazards. Akinyemi said that considering how inflammable the oil and gas was, “we do not want to play with how the sector is managed in order to get investors interested in it.”

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