Big 3 oil firms halt third-party risk assessment in Pandacan

MANILA, Philippines - The operators of the Pandacan oil depot have temporarily halted the conduct of a third-party risk assessment in the facility.

Pilipinas Shell Petroleum Corp. country chairman Edgar Chua said the locators of the oil warehouse (Shell, Petron and Chevron) have yet to complete the council that would be part of the assessment scheme.

“We’re asking all stakeholders to be involved, but many have declined. I think it (risk assessment) will not push through yet because they refuse to join us,” he said.

Chua said it would be useless to undertake the said assessment without the participation of all stakeholders.

“If we will do it on our own, they will say the assessment is partial and does not include the stakeholders. We might as well wait for these parties to join us,” he stressed.

According to Chua, the oil companies occupying the depot have done their part. “We have done ours already. We’ve given them all the proposals so it’s up to them to say yes,” he said.

The third-party independent environment risk assessment of the Pandacan oil depot was expected to kick off in the last quarter of 2009.

The Big 3 oil companies believe the involvement of all concerned groups would ensure the transparency of the process.

The three oil companies have taken extra steps since 2002 to reassure the residents around the Pandacan terminal by scaling down operations including the removal of liquefied petroleum gas storage, the reduction of other fuel storage tanks, as well as the creation of a green buffer zone.

Beyond these, there are now separate initiatives among the three oil companies to scale down their Pandacan operations further. The heads of the three oil firms also noted the eventual phase-out of the Pandacan facility in the long-term.

“The capacity size and length of stay of Pandacan oil depot will depend on the economic activity in the future. There may be some oil depots that would be put up somewhere that may warrant to downsize our operations in Pandacan,” they said.