New APEAMembers

Texaco's health, environment and safety department and specialist environmental contractors are currently investigating the source of the vapours.

The environmental department at Carlow County Council has been informed and are being kept appraised of the situation. Initial checks on boreholes around the site perimeter and around the tanks, revealed no evidence of free product underground or migrating off-site, however investigations are ongoing.

Texaco confirmed that after an initial investigation, the owner of the property was offered alternative accommodation until further checks could be carried out by Texaco's environmental consultants.

Although the site is open for non-fuel sales, it will remain closed to fuel sales until Texaco and the relevant authorities are satisfied that the situation has been remedied.

Scotland, Edinburgh major safety problems for retailers as ninety percent of city’s petrol stations fail basic safety tests

Ninety percent of petrol stations in Edinburgh are breaching basic safety regulations. Spot checks at the 46 petrol stations in Edinburgh by trading standards officers revealed all but four were failing to comply with the strict conditions of their petroleum licence.

The report revealed that most employees running the sites did not know what to do in an emergency and that one in seven stations had inadequate firefighting equipment. The city council, which is responsible for regulating health and safety at petrol stations, has served statutory enforcement notices on 12 petrol stations. And all petrol station managers in the city have now been called to a safety seminar with the authorities.

The number failing the checks has more than doubled in the last year, when a similar survey found 40 per cent did not comply with licence conditions.

Among the many failures were broken or empty fire extinguishers, faulty forecourt lighting and untrained staff who did not know what to do in the event of a fire. Other major flaws included staff not having access to site records and broken tannoys.

One senior officer from Lothian and Borders Fire Brigade said: "These petrol stations which have failed to comply with the safety standards are presenting a big, big risk to the public, for staff not to know what to do in an emergency is just ridiculous. We're very surprised that so many petrol stations failed these basic checks and it's a matter of great concern."

The council is pledging tough action if future checks do not show a significant improvement.

The council conducted the survey at night in a bid to find out the operation of stations when it was dark and when they were closed. The research found that 87 per cent of premises surveyed breached at least one safety regulation and less than half of petrol station owners had secured their premises from vandalism compared with 100 per cent in the last survey. 25% of the employees did not know whom to contact in the event of an emergency and 14 per cent had inadequate fire fighting equipment.

A quarter of petrol stations had inadequate forecourt lighting while twothirds did not have proper lighting to permit tankers to deliver safely in the dark. Four stations have been prohibited from taking night -time tanker deliveries because of the seriousness of the flaws. Acouncil spokeswoman said: "We decided to organise a safety seminar because of the findings of the night-time survey and the fact that the industry seem incapable of dealing with these problems demonstrated by the doubling in the number of stations not complying with regulations. Following this, we would hope that future checks on petrol stations demonstrate a significant improvement. While we don't have the power to order managers to turn up to the seminar, it would make sense for them to do so bearing in mind the problems we have uncovered. If they don't take action to rectify the faults, they face being taken to court.”

Hungary, Tesco Global opens its first petrol station in Hungary

TESCO Global Áruházak Rt, the Hungarian subsidiary of the British retailer Tesco Plc, has launched its first discount retail petrol station at the group's Soroksár unit, in Budapest's District XXIII. The retail chain KlubPetrol (owned and operated by Magyar Auto Klub and Hungaronafta Kft) opened the first "test" petrol station at Tesco's about 80km south-west of Budapest a few years ago. Emese Danks, Director of Communications at Tesco said, "Originally Tesco had planned to cooperate with KlubPetrol. However we decided to carry out our own concept in Hungary, in the same way the concept has successfully been carried out in the UK."

In Britain Tesco has more than 300 retail petrol outlets, she said. "Hungarian consumers are more selective and want more than KlubPetrol provides, they demand full services with shops at petrol stations," she added. Danks said that the Tesco's new outlet has eight pumps and is open daily from 6am to midnight. "Customers at the filling station can purchase their petrol for Ft5 less per litre than at other major filling stations. Those customers who spend at least Ft8,000 at Tesco can fill their cars for Ft10 less per litre," she added.

Tesco plans to open as many as seven petrol stations this year at existing sites and one of the nine new Tesco hypermarkets planned. "The next Tesco petrol station will open at the unit in Veszprém," she said. Tesco is currently the largest British investor in Hungary, with 33 outlets, employing some 15,000 workers. The company is due to announce its 2003 year results in April.

Bahrain, Mobile users face filling station clamp as Bahrain leads the way

Bahrain petrol stations may soon be equipped with technology that automatically disconnects mobile phones when they drive onto petrol stations to refuel their vehicles.

The aim is to reduce the risk of fire while vehicles are being filled with fuel and will be the first stations that provide such technology said head of Bapco planning and market development Jassim Isa Al Shirawi.

The Bapco board is currently studying the suggestion. Mr. Al Shirawi said that Bapco had contacted the Oil Ministry and Civil Defence and Fire Service Directorate to discuss launching a campaign to ban the use of mobile phones at all petrol stations while vehicles are being filled up.