The Department of Petroleum Resource (DPR), on Wednesday explained the causes of adulteration of different petroleum products that are used as fuels.
Speaking on the DPR Half Hour of the Radio Nigeria, which The Nation monitored, the Assistant Director, Safety and Environment, in charge of Laboratory Services, and Quality Control, Mr. Agbada Jerome, accepted that there is a marginal possibility of having contaminated products in the country.
He noted that products as kerosene, Premium Motor Spirit and Diesel, become adulterated when the tanks or tankers are conveying the products they are not supposed to carry.
He added that the residual content of the previous product could contaminate the new one, whenever there is a switch from one product to another.
Jerome however insisted that the DPR has measures of ensuring that all imported petroleum products meet its specification.
His words: “Most of the products we have in Nigeria today, 90% of the products, the white products (petrol diesel) are imported, the federal government thorough NNPC imports 90% of the products.
“And if you have few cases of adulteration, they might be as a result of the use of tanks, tanker trucks that are not supposed to carry one product but they are carrying, or the residual content of a product they had carried earlier and in the course of turning to another product, you find this kind of adulteration.
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“They manifest for those who use Automative vehicles, sometime, you buy petrol, you find water inside, or you buy kerosene, it is adulterated and causes explosion. Those are the areas. But for the imported product, every effort is systematically taken to ensure that the product that is imported meets the Nigerian specification.”
He said that the DPR has officers at the seaports, stressing that almost all the vessels bearing petroleum products berth in Lagos.
According to him, before an importer gets an approval to import, the provision of the import permit requires the importer to bring a sample of the product he intends to import into Nigeria.
The sample of the product, said Jerome, is always accompanied with a certificate, which the DPR receives, analyses, and document the quality of the sample before the importer gets the go ahead to import the product.
Jerome said that upon the arrival of the entire product, the DPR takes and analyses the product in order to reconcile its quality with the previous specimen.
He said that if the DPR is satisfied that the product meets the Nigerian standard, it issues the importer a certificate and allows him to discharge the product.
He however, pointed out that if the quality is different from the previous one, the DPR rejects the product.
Continuing, he noted that “when the bulk product, AGO, PMS, or DPK (Household Kerosene) comes in a big vessel, a sample is again taken. And that vessel is accompanied with a certificate of analysis of quality of that product.
“Now the sample taken from that vessel is again analysed to ensure that the first specimen that was sent earlier before importation agrees with the bigger vessel that has come. And again when that analysis is conducted, we ensure that the certificate of quality about this product falls within the Nigerian Industrial Standard. If it does not meet the Nigerian standard, the vessel will not be allowed to discharge.”