Certification: SON Gives Gas Tank Owners Ultimatum

• Standards Organisation of Nigeria Gives Gas Tank Owners Ultimatum

The Standards Organisation of Nigeria has issued a two-week ultimatum to owners of uncertified Liquefied Petroleum Gas storage tanks across the country to get the standardisation and certificates for the facilities or have them shut down.

A statement from the Office of the Director-General, SON, Mr. Osita Aboloma, indicated that the agency observed and was worried about the sharp rise in the installation of LPG storage tanks in petrol filling stations across the country, many of which could not provide evidence of SON certification of the vessels.

Aboloma directed all SON officers to intensity the surveillance of all installed LPG storage tanks in their areas of coverage to ascertain those that had undergone certification before installation as required by the Department of Petroleum Resources.

He said that all imported and locally fabricated LPG storage tanks were required to undergo SON certification to assure conformity with the requirements of the Nigeria Industrial Standards 419:2000 specification and testing of unfired pressure vessels for the storage of LPG.

These according to him, include safety and performance requirements.

The SON DG said that locally manufactured vessels were required to undergo certification under the SON Mandatory Conformity Assessment Programme, while imported vessels were required to undergo the offshore CAP certification.

He appealed to members of the public to be vigilant and report any installation of LPG storage tanks in their vicinity to the nearest SON office for verification of compliance to standards in the interest of public safety.

“The time has come to put our act together and end the nightmare resulting from gas explosion. We are committed to the full implementation of the policy against the use of substandard storage tanks,” Aboloma added.