NEWS - NAMIBIA
| 2013-07-31Vivo sells tainted fuel, cars get stuck
Chamwe Kaira
A COCKTAIL of fuels at one of Vivo Energy busiest stations in Windhoek left a lot of motorists with broken down cars on Monday afternoon.
The Southgate Service Station on Mandume Ndemufayo Road close to the Safari Hotel mistakenly pumped a cross contamination of fuels and the unsuspecting motorists who bought fuel saw their cars stuck a few minutes’ drive from the station. In the oil industry, contamination refers to an incident where two or more different fuels are mixed by mistake.
“There was a long line of cars that could not move,” one of the motorists told The Namibian, refusing to reveal his name because he said Vivo Energy was still trying to have his car repaired following the incident and did not want to jeopardise the process.
The “contaminated fuel” was loaded into the storage tanks by a tanker from the transport company, Unitrans, which delivered the fuel to Vivo Energy.
Unitras Director for Business Development, Issy Namaseb, confirmed the incident but said it may have been caused by a mixture of fuels at the Vivo depot. He said the incident was “costly” but he refused to give figures involved. The affected motorists who preferred to speak to The Namibian on condition of anonymity said they were worried about the long term effect on their car engines as a result of the incident.
But Namaseb blamed Southgate Service Station for the incident saying that its workers were supposed pump in the fuel from the Unitrans tanker first and not sell while the tank was unloading.
“We had a meeting with Vivo today (Tuesday) and we will have another meeting tomorrow,” he said. “Our trucks are state of the art and our drivers are well trained,” he said.
Vivo Energy Communications Manager, Mona-Liza Garises confirmed the incident and said it was “rather unfortunate.”
“We are aware of about 13 vehicles that were affected by the incident. As soon as the first customer alerted us of the incident, we rented vehicles for some of the customers, provided cash to those who wanted to make own arrangements for towing their vehicles, and we towed the affected vehicles, at our cost, to a garage of the customers’ choice where the vehicles are being flushed; once the vehicles have been flushed, we will re-fuel the vehicles at our cost,” she said.
Garises said an investigation into the cause of the “contamination was underway.”
“What we can say at this point is that a cross-contamination between ULP and AGO may have taken place, and that no problems were detected at the loading depot. The contaminated product in the tanks was evacuated and replaced with clean product. The service station has gone back to operation at 08h00 (Tuesday) already this morning.
“What matters at this point is that we reacted quickly to avoid more vehicles receiving the contaminated fuel, that we could assist our customers and that the situation is under control,” she said.
The Southgate Service Station on Mandume Ndemufayo Road close to the Safari Hotel mistakenly pumped a cross contamination of fuels and the unsuspecting motorists who bought fuel saw their cars stuck a few minutes’ drive from the station. In the oil industry, contamination refers to an incident where two or more different fuels are mixed by mistake.
“There was a long line of cars that could not move,” one of the motorists told The Namibian, refusing to reveal his name because he said Vivo Energy was still trying to have his car repaired following the incident and did not want to jeopardise the process.
The “contaminated fuel” was loaded into the storage tanks by a tanker from the transport company, Unitrans, which delivered the fuel to Vivo Energy.
Unitras Director for Business Development, Issy Namaseb, confirmed the incident but said it may have been caused by a mixture of fuels at the Vivo depot. He said the incident was “costly” but he refused to give figures involved. The affected motorists who preferred to speak to The Namibian on condition of anonymity said they were worried about the long term effect on their car engines as a result of the incident.
But Namaseb blamed Southgate Service Station for the incident saying that its workers were supposed pump in the fuel from the Unitrans tanker first and not sell while the tank was unloading.
“We had a meeting with Vivo today (Tuesday) and we will have another meeting tomorrow,” he said. “Our trucks are state of the art and our drivers are well trained,” he said.
Vivo Energy Communications Manager, Mona-Liza Garises confirmed the incident and said it was “rather unfortunate.”
“We are aware of about 13 vehicles that were affected by the incident. As soon as the first customer alerted us of the incident, we rented vehicles for some of the customers, provided cash to those who wanted to make own arrangements for towing their vehicles, and we towed the affected vehicles, at our cost, to a garage of the customers’ choice where the vehicles are being flushed; once the vehicles have been flushed, we will re-fuel the vehicles at our cost,” she said.
Garises said an investigation into the cause of the “contamination was underway.”
“What we can say at this point is that a cross-contamination between ULP and AGO may have taken place, and that no problems were detected at the loading depot. The contaminated product in the tanks was evacuated and replaced with clean product. The service station has gone back to operation at 08h00 (Tuesday) already this morning.
“What matters at this point is that we reacted quickly to avoid more vehicles receiving the contaminated fuel, that we could assist our customers and that the situation is under control,” she said.
