'Human errors behind majority of accidents in oil, gas sector'

Ignorance, negligence, carelessness and dereliction of duty besides equipment failure have led to the incidents: HPCL

Human errors have been responsible for majority of accidents in the oil and gas industry, experts said on Thursday, stressing on improving safety and security measures to minimise such incidents.

"Human errors have been a major contributing factor in case of mishappenings in the oil and gas sector. Ignorance, negligence, carelessness and dereliction of duty besides equipment failure have led to incidents and they must be checked," Chairman and Managing Director (CMD) of Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Limited (HPCL), M K Surana said.

"We should learn from mistakes of the past and should not repeat them," he said at the inaugural session of a two-day conference on excellence in Hydrocarbon safety 'PetroSafe-2016' here.

Shailendra Singh, Joint Secretary of the department of Industrial Policy and Promotion, Minister of Commerce and Industry, said Rajasthan has vast opportunities in oil and gas exploration and a good environment for doing business.

"Rajasthan is among the leading states in ease of doing business and has carried out labour reforms. The ranking of the state would improve in the years to come," Singh said.

Chief Controller of Petroleum and Explosive Safety Organisation (PESO), S Kamal said PESO has introduced auto- renewal of licenses of petrol pump, petroleum transportation, LPG godowns and filling plants and the facility will be offered for other premises as well in next three months.

"It is the first of its kind initiative which will save time of the stakeholders and PESO as well," he said.

PESO, the regulatory body for hydrocarbon safety, is holding the conference in collaboration with consortium of oil companies and national safety council.