The Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR) in Akwa Ibom has warned Liquified Petroleum Gas (LPG) refilling plants to adhere to approved project design in the state.

The Operations Controller of DPR, Mr Tamunoiminabo Kingsley-Sundaye gave the warning in an interview with the newsmen in Eket Local Government Area of Akwa Ibom on Friday.

He observed that five LPG refilling plants under construction had deviated from the approved standard aand substituted them with designs which negate   the standard and guidelines of such projects.

“We are reassessing LPG refilling plants that are under construction to see if they are building in accordance to the approved design for them.

“Unfortunately we observed that five of those LPG refilling plants are building the plants against the approved design.

“What this people do is that when they are constructing LPG refilling plants, they place the critical units such as vessel, pumphouse, decounting, packing areas among others wrongly.

“In constructing gas design, tank must be at 15 meters distance to both sides of the land, especially the decounting must be at the center of the land.

“If there are issues of either explosion or fire incident, it can be curtailed within the owner’s facility and the impact on the third party must be minimised,” he said.

The operations controller said that the importance of the critical units was for safety and efficiency of the plants.

He added that the DPR promised to adhere to standard and guidelines in order to guide against incidents in the future.

Kingsley-Sundaye advised the proponents to follow standard and guidelines for the construction of LPG refilling plants and also ensure that throughout the construction stages, the approved design was adhered to.