Only functional refineries, pipelines can remove tank farms from Coconut axis of Lagos
…Lagos State Govt cannot
There is no gainsaying the fact that the sprawling massive tank farm lining along the waterways of Coconut towards Tincan Island Port remains a source of danger and concern for healthy tinkers due to its closeness to residential areas across the Oshodi-Apapa Expressway.
Whereas analysts are divided on whether the Lagos State government will muster the needed political will to drive the decision to outlaw tank farming within the axis, oil and gas observers are upbeat that if the recent pronouncement of the Minister of petroleum Resources, Dr. Ibe Kachukwu on ending products imports by end of 2019 is anything to go by, it means that the farms will die a natural death in 2019.
The minister is working on the permutation that by then, all refineries are working at full capacities, Dangote refinery is on full stream and possibly, several modular refineries yet to be licenced are all on stream.
Though the minister was silent on programmes for the resuscitation of national distribution arterial pipelines, there are reasons to believe that they may be reactivated as soon as refineries are coming up so that moribund depots will come back and even new ones built.
In an interview, a US trained Petroleum engineer who pleaded anonymity working with one of the major international oil companies said “By engineering standards, petroleum tank farms and even refineries are high caliber inflammable centre and as such, they are supposed to be sited not less than three to five kilometers away from residential catchments”.
Efforts to get details of tank farm approvals at the Lagos State Ministry of Lands failed as everybody was running away for comments even when they were assured of not mentioning their names.
