Hazard Analysis and Safe Transportation Procedure for Fuel Outlets

Issues related to occupational health and safety are quite common in the downstream of all industries particularly the transportation of fuel at outlet stations. These include fire, falls, electrocutions, vehicle accidents, robbery, and snakebite. the level of risk of these hazards are varies according to location and country. This paper presents the findings of a study on hazards of transporting fuel and retail station operation in Pakistan. A total of 2500 of retail stations belong to a major retail company operating in the country were monitored over a period of six months. During the study period all incidents, accidents and near miss case were recorded. There were 674 cases which include 49 accidents, 143 incidents and 482 near misses occurred over the period. These cases were analysed based on the risk matrix analysis criteria adopted by oil industry in Malaysia. It was found that road accident have the highest occupational risk in the retail outlet operation followed by fire, cleaning, electrical hazard, storm, filling operation, loading and unloading, slips trips and falls and minor injuries. Only road accidents hazard requires intervention by action plan to bring the number of eases to ALARP (as low as reasonably practicable). Other hazards require action to increase the awareness among the workers. Detail descriptions of these hazards are presented in this paper. This paper also proposes preventive action plan for management of the hazards associated with transportation of fuel.