By Adedapo Adesanya
The Rivers State Government has begun the sensitisation of residents of the state on the dangers of expired gas cylinders, describing it as “a suicide mission”.
The state’s Commissioner for Energy and Mineral Resources, Mr Peter Medee, disclosed that every gas cylinder has an expiry date, as it was important for the public to know when their gas cylinders will expire.
Mr Medee said every gas cylinder is built to expire over time, and they are marked with ABCD, which represents the first to the fourth quarter of the year, such that a cylinder marked D21 is expected to expire by the end of the last quarter of 2021.
“There’s also another very critical situation you know which we are also sensitizing people about. The gas cylinder you have in your house has an expiry date. How do you know if your gas cylinder is expired or not? It is important because that’s another suicide mission.
“You have a gas cylinder, it’s already expired and you are using it in your house and if it explodes, how do you get out of it? The whole family is gone.
“So, we are also sensitizing people and the state on that. If you have a gas cylinder, you look at the expiry date you either see A06 or A21.
“Let me explain that; if you have A21 or B21, C21, or D21; since we are in the year 2021, what that means is that if it is A21, it means that, that cylinder will expire in March 2021 that’s the first quarter. Let’s say it is A22 it means that by end of March 2022 that cylinder will expire so, what you are expected to do is to dispose away that cylinder and buy a new one or take it to a gas plant where they will exchange it with a new cylinder.
“If your cylinder is C22, it means it will expire in the third quarter of 2022. If it is D23, it means it will expire in the fourth quarter of 2023. So, people need to be educated to understand this in the handling of these gas cylinders.”
The Rivers State government also warned against decanting of gas in the shop by retailers, urging the public to always refill their cooking gas at the gas plant and not from roadside retailers.
“You can see a situation where people buy gas in a shop. The vendor goes to the gas plant and buys two big cylinders brings them back to his shop and then stay there to decant these gas into smaller gas bottles.
“When you are doing that, you are, it’s like you are taking sniper that wants to die because if that gas explodes, it would have been better for you to take sniper because you would have died alone; but if you are putting your neighbours into a very serious crisis, the lives and properties of Rivers people is in danger.
“So, the ministry, in collaboration with Commission is putting up a sensitization workshop for all those handling gas to see how they can handle it in the safest way.
“You can imagine you sit in a shop a customer comes there, there’s no safety device there to be able to look at what you are doing, you stay there to exchange gas from one big bottle into a small bottle. If there’s an explosion it kills you, it kills the customer, the property is burnt, all the shop in the neighbourhood is gone, the passerby, including the vehicles, so a lot of people are at risk,” it added.
Modupe Gbadeyanka
About Mr Peter Medee his children are still alive.