Why do all petrol stations look the same?

Articles History of Petrol Stations Part 5 - Churchill’s Departmental Committee Report on Petroleum Spirit (Section One)

By Brian Baker

In the annals of petroleum history, there is a cornerstone to record - and that simply is known as the Departmental Committee‘s First Report on Petroleum Spirit which was set up to report to the then Home Secretary, the Right Honourable Winston Churchill, MPwho in 1909 was the UK’s Home Secretary.

The need for a Departmental Committee came about as the number of fires and explosions involving petroleum spirit following its importation, distribution and storage became widespread across the UK with deaths and serious injuries being sustained. Its original use as a lighting fuel was still in use, so too was its use as a cleaning solvent as well as in hairdressing but more significantly, the rise and presence of the motor vehicle accelerated its use and there was a huge increase for its demand in the early years of 20th century Britain. In fact the impact of the Committees findings was to eventually see a complete re-issue of petroleum regulations some years later that was to become known as the Petroleum (Consolidation) Act. 1928 (and later in 1929 for Northern Ireland)

T h e Committee came into being on 1 9 t h December 1 9 0 8 (Command Paper No. 5175) under a Warrant of Appointment w h o s e members were Sir Henry Hardinge Cunnyghame as Chairman, Sir Boverton Redwood, a Cabinet Minister, Major Aston McNeill Cooper-Key, His Majesty’s Chief Inspector of Explosives and James Ollis, Chief Officer, Public Control Department of the then London County Council.

On 11th February 1909, Arthur Boyle, Engineer Surveyor in Chief of the Marine Department of the Board of Trade was also appointed to contribute specifically to incidents involving petroleum in the Docks and Harbours around the UK.

The Committee’s task was “To inquire into the sufficiency of the existing regulations relating to the storage, use and conveyance of petroleum spirit and to report what further precautions, if any, are in their opinion desirable as tending to diminish the dangers attendant thereon” The Warrant being signed by Hubert J Gladstone, son of the of the famous William Gladstone, the former Prime Minister of Great Britain who held office some years earlier.

To conduct such a wide ranging inquiry, 39 people were questioned and recorded between 23 February 1909 and 3 February 1910, including John Troutbeck the Coroner for Westminster and South West London, The Right Honourable Earl Russell and the head of the London Fire Brigade, Captain Thompson.

The first report was published as Command Paper No at the sum of 6d (2.5p) in 1910. They used the term Flash Point of Petroleum Spirit as 73 degrees Fahrenheit throughout the report and examined witnesses from the Local Authorities, Railways, Trade Interests, Manufacturers of Safety Devices, The London Fire Brigade, the London Salvage Corps and the British Fire Prevention Committee and finally “Motorists”. The insurance industry was also represented by a Mr Dilloway.

This committee visited Purfleet where large storages belonging to the AngloAmerican and British Petroleum Companies as well a visit to Portishead, near Bristol (Avonmouth). Afurther visit was made to the works of the Safety Non-Explosive Reservoir Company where they witnessed demonstrations

of the company’s devices as well as looking at experiments with the use of Steel Barrels and the test of bursting them under pressure.

The Committee reviewed the existing Acts of the time – The Petroleum Acts of 1871 and 1879 as well as the Petroleum (Hawkers) Act of 1881 and the Highways Act of 1896 that made storage of petroleum possible for locomotives under section 5 of that Act

There were at the time several names alluding to petroleum that are listed which included “Rock Oil” “Rangoon Oil”, “Burmah Oil” and oil made from petroleum, coal, schist, shale, peat or other “bitumous” substance. They (the Committee) ensured tests were carried out on all these substances to ensure the global term of petroleum matched that of the Flash Point referred to of 73 degrees Fahrenheit using Abel’s Closed Cup Apparatus the report continues to discuss a range of applications central of which is the issue of a Petroleum Licence

Defects and Omissions of the Existing Acts

This section begins to list the shortcomings of the legislation in force at that date and can be listed as follows;

1.“There is an absence of any provision for Government to control and supervise of the working of the Acts and no statutory requirement to the reporting of accidents and powers for enabling investigations to be made”.

2.“There is an absence of restrictions upon the conveyance of petroleum spirit by road and conditions that may be imposed by a (Petroleum)

Licensing Authority.”

3.“There is excessive decentralisation which places administration of the

Acts in the hands of District Councils in England and Wales and Petty

Sessions in Ireland.” 4.“There is an absence of any obligation upon local authorities to enforce the law or to appoint officers for its administration.”

5.“There is inadequate powers of inspection, search and sampling conferred upon officers appointed by the local authority.”

6.“There is fact that manufacture and use of petroleum spirit are not governed by the Acts as well as the wide uses of the time, domestic use and the methods and use by hairdressers.”

7.“There is limited scope of the powers conferred on Harbour Authorities in regard to byelaws and also the very wide definition given to the term

“Harbour”

8.“There is an absence of powers enabling railway and canal companies to make byelaws as to conveyance.”

9.“There is an absence of a definite penalty for the breach of any terms of a Licence.”

10. “There is an absence of any prohibition, except in the Petroleum (Hawkers) Act 1881 of allowing petroleum spirit to escape into drains or sewers.”

11. “There is an absence of uniformity in the regulation of the keeping of petroleum spirit or of any indication as to the general character of the precautions to be taken in connection therewith.”

12. “There is an absence of terms or arrangements on the storage of empty petroleum containers.”

13. “There is an absence of any terms for the keeping of petroleum spirit for use in Motor Vehicles.”

14. “There is a need for a standardised container such as the

Two-Gallon Rectangular style that was adopted from the specification given in the “Railway Classification of

Goods Merchandise Trains, dated

January 1909, page 365” (Hence the standard 2 gallon metal tin petrol containers was born!)

The report then goes on to discuss various incidents and the receipt of testimony from numerous professionals, bearing in mind that in this report, no mention of the use of electricity is mentioned - that is to follow a few years later.

Finally in this First Report Appendix 1 a list some 107 Harbour Authorities is recorded that had made Bye Laws under Section 4 of the Petroleum Act 1871.In Appendix 2 samples of types of licenses issued by London County Council are given as a guideline that include conditions of licence for Dry Cleaning, Manufacture of Helmets, Manufacture of India Rubber, Manufacture of Waterproof Garments, Glass Silvering, Manufacture of Paint, Glove Cleaning , Manufacture of Asbestos Packing, Tyre Making, Repairing and Re-Treading, Manufacture of Incandescent Lamps, Manufacture of “Air Gas”.

The final Appendix shows a Brick “Intercepting Tank for Retaining Petroleum” that was in use around 1909.

The last point in the First Report of the Departmental Committee is a submission of a Table of fires from the City of Glasgow that ends out of 13,988 fires in the city, 123 were caused by petroleum vapour in contact with lights!

Next time we shall look at more findings from Churchill’s Committee that answers more questions that shaped our legislation here in the UK and influenced many other countries around the world in the control of petroleum spirit.

By Jamie Thompson

The Kingdom is an archipelago of 40 islands situated in the Arabian Gulf - a number that is growing as new developments spring up across the Kingdom - placed midway between the Qatar peninsula and Saudi Arabia.

Bahrain is an Arabic word meaning "Two Seas", referring to the island's two sources of water, sweet water springs and salty water.

It is small in size in comparison with

its neighbours but has an important position in the area and contributed to the areas history by becoming the first country to discover oil in the region.

Bahrain was once famous for its pearl fishermen and the quality of its pearls, but the emphasis changed in the 1930’s when the fist oil well in the whole of the region was drilled and oil discovered in commercial quantities. This led to the development of many oil wells in the country and the forming the Bahrain Petroleum Company (BAPCO).

Bahrain has a land area of 711 sq km and a population of around 730,000

people the official language is Arabic but English is widely spoken and is the principal language for business.

There are at present 39 petrol stations on the island with 16 owned by BAPCO. They are all attendant operated and a unique problem here is that all the sites are very busy as the car to petrol station ratio is 8400 cars per service station compared with 2240 cars per station in the UK.

The Government are hoping to increase the number of service stations on the island to reach a ratio of 4500 cars per station.

Many of the service stations are built to be similar to many others world wide with the newer sites adopting the principles laid down in the APEA/IP“Blue Book “ with double wall steel tanks and submersible pumps serving dispensers via double wall PE pipe work, with electronic gauges widely used. Bapco in the past had sent some of its engineers on APEAtraining courses in the UK but in October 2007 invited the APEAto hold a series of especially adapted courses in Bahrain. The courses held in Awali covered Construction and Environmental Awareness, Audit and Inspection and Electrical Engineering.

The courses were run by Gareth

“Construction Course”

Asite inspection

Checking the dip stick Bourhill, Jamie Thompson and Brian Baker and were well attended by a large group of interested engineers. And these courses also included some site visits.

The welcome the APEA training staff received was excellent and with the friendly nature of all the people we met we had wonderful hospitality.

One surprise was being greeted by one young engineer called Abdullatif Alsahhaf with the thickest Scottish accent I have heard, it would appear that after 4 years in Scotland at University the accent really stuck and he was soon nicknamed “Wee Jimmy”. Our resident Scot Gareth Bourhill is

Brian Baker finds the Tanker Drivers seat convinced the accent is with him for life! With a very full 5 days courses the engineers completed they’re training enthusiastically with on-site inspections and reporting on problems found. My comments were mainly restricted to the heat during the on-site inspections, with all of them telling me how pleasant the weather is this time of year. You should come in July I was told it is really hot then +40°C! Thanks to my two colleagues on the course who also enjoyed this experience Gareth finding a fellow “Scot” in Bahrain and Brian for his frequent Arabic phrases, which we hope he got right!

By Brian Baker

Within our Industry we have numerous characters we immediately identify with a particular Company and our interview this time is with one of those – Anton Martiniussen –synonymous with Elaflex Limited – a leading supplier not just in the UK Market but throughout the world. I managed to catch up with Anton recently and managed to get this interview with him!

Anton Martiniussen

It is always a pleasure to catch up with you as a colleague I have known for some years now and want to clear up something straight away. You work for Elaflex, who is based in Germany, were are you exactly from?

I grew up in the Norwegian towns of Bergen and Stavanger and had an idyllic childhood growing up in the country side with skiing and skating in the winter and carefree adventures in the summer against a backdrop of fjords and hills. Alust for travel as a young man drew me to England. Like many before me I crossed the North Sea on the “England Boat” which sails between Stavanger and Newcastle.

You must have spent some years with Elaflex, tell me about how It all started and what your background is?

My background was as the export business manager for a company based in Nottingham setting up distributors in Europe and Scandinavia selling industrial consumable products. Later I worked out of the UK office for an American company involved in petroleum handling equipment with responsibility for countries in East, West and Central Africa, The Middle East, Europe and Scandinavia. This involved frequent travel for weeks at a time. I joined Elaflex Ltd 1987 when it was formed in a partnership with Permex.

You seem to combine a very good technique of a commercial skills combined with technical knowledge of the products you sell that I have spoken to you about on many occasions. How has that come about?

As an ambitious young man I was fortunate to have worked alongside some exceptional and extraordinary business people who have had considerable commercial skills and technical knowledge. In our business a balance between the two is beneficial. As someone once said to me” you have to see it technically”

Tell me more about Elaflex, where are they based and how did they start? (Any photos would be good of Elaflex)

ELAFLEX is based in Hamburg Germany. ELAFLEX LTD is situated in Hoddesdon in Hertfordshire. The origins of ELAFLEX date back some seventyfive years. Founded in Hamburg in1923 the company developed from a technical equipment distributor to an internationally recognised specialist in refuelling equipment. For the forecourt market we combine the ZVAfamily of nozzles with pump hoses, Safety Break couplings and nozzle accessories such as splash guards, scuff guards, anti kink sleeves etc.

For the ever increasing market demands ELAFLEX designed and developed the ZVA200 GR Stage II vapour recovery nozzles to recover harmful vapours and the ZVADiesel Drip Stop nozzle for a cleaner retail diesel site and more recently nozzles for AdBlue.

We also supply rubber suction discharge hoses, expansion joints and couplings for handling a wide range of applications including aviation refuelling, fuel oil road tankers, LPG etc. Our range of technical specialty hoses can handle almost any liquid.

ELAFLEX HQ Hamburg

When did we see the early automatic cut off nozzles we see today? My guess it would be around the mid 1960’s when Attended Self Service made its appearance in the UK. Can you shed some light on this?

Europe had a widespread self-service operation for many years. This made it necessary to develop a true “self service nozzle” customer-friendly and easy to handle. The nozzle had to be light-weight and ergonomically designed, robust, and provide “to-thepenny-dispensing.” Our philosophy that the nozzle could easily be repaired and even rebuilt was important and still is today as it means reusing the materials.

Some countries also demanded the use of the hold open latch. Our nozzles experienced significant developments since 1962 together with the Slimline and C 16 petrol pump hoses. By the end of the century several ZVA nozzle models had been successfully introduced to the market. Globalization ongoing investment and development brought further growth to the business.

ZVA200VR nozzle

What would you say has been the best time of your career?

Throughout my career I have always thought that each current phase of my career has been the best time. In the early years one is driven by the energy and exuberance of the challenge. I am fortunate in that I have always done a job that I find fascinating and exciting. Even now the challenges are new but one has more experience with knowledge acquired.

I have to ask the question, was there a time when you felt that the industry is not so good?

From time to time there have been periods when the industry was insufficiently regulated not keeping pace with developments. Nor was one so aware of the possible dangers in the handling of petroleum spirit. It was not so good at the time when it was common place for a person to walk in front of a motor car waving a flag or the time when it was quite acceptable to carry petrol in glass bottles. The learning curve in the industry has been rapid and needs to be flexible enough to keep pace with safety requirements. The forecourt equipment industry is constantly evolving, developing new products. New materials and manufacturing techniques introduce new possibilities to do things more easily and handle ever more complex fuel mixtures. Safety regulations and standards need to be regularly updated to support safe and best practises.

So what is in store for Elaflex in the foreseeable future?

There is a lot of work going on with the regulations requiring Stage II VR. The deadline is soon so it’s important to plan ahead. The Forecourt Equipment Federation (FEF) has produced a code of practice. This is a good reference document. Later this year we will be introducing the new ZVA Slimline 2 nozzle. Stainless steel tipped spout are supplied as standard on all Slimline nozzles. Our lightweight petrol pump hoses also provide easy fuelling for the motorist at the filling station. We will be exhibiting at the forecourt show later this year.

Elaflex as a company have been strong supporters of the APEAbut then so have you personally with your input and activity as the Eastern Branch Secretary and Treasurer, something you have held for some years now. Tell me about your involvement in the APEA and the Eastern Branch in particular?

The APEA Branches represent members from various areas of the country. I have been involved with the APEA for about 20 years and was initially “volunteered” to take on the role of Secretary of the Eastern Branch. I like to think that we have an active branch providing regular meetings with stimulating debates at interesting venues with a variety of speakers who present new products and technologies. Some years ago the APEAhonoured me with a fellowship of the APEA. The APEA provides an excellent forum where members can meet and share knowledge. Any members who have not

Now Anton – you are not out there selling nozzles all the time, so what do you do in your pleasure time and what do you to relax?

I enjoy leisure travelling, walking. Reading about history and current affairs. Visiting art galleries and going to matches at Old Trafford.

Finally, what would you like to see change in the industry? Is there anything that you feel would improve in what we do?

There has been talk about how to bring young people into the industry. The APEAshould consider playing a part to encourage schools and industry to develop initiatives and apprenticeships. It’s important that engineering excellence is maintained and supported by the industry. Quality engineered products will always provide the best performance. Imitations are a false economy.

Thanks Anton, as always willing to share your thoughts and a big thank you from us all on Council of the Association for what you do.

Addendum to approve code of practice and guidance for the unloading of petrol from road tankers

By Mike Harding, UKPIA

Recent improvements in technology have enabled companies supplying petrol to retail outlets to remotely manage and control stock levels at these outlets from a central location; this location need not be located in the UK. The guidance contained in the Approve Code of Practice for the Unloading of Petrol from Road Tankers prevents these suppliers using fully the advantages provided by this new technology. This addendum will enable those companies using remote stock control, to manage deliveries to retail outlets effectively and efficiently.

This addendum provides alternative definitions for a Site Operator and a Competent Person that can be used with the main body of this ACoP. It also allows for the provision of ullage information to a tanker driver by electronic means provided this information has been first checked by the Site Operator as defined in this addendum.

Alternative Definitions Used in This Addendum

The following definitions apply where stock is controlled remotely by the oil company using electronic gauge measuring systems.

Site Operator. The Site Operator is the person appointed by the consignor’s controlling authority as being responsible for:

a.Control of the measuring systems.

b.Stock control at the remote retail outlet.

c.Determining the safe ullage information at the remote retail outlet.

d.Provision of this safe ullage information to the driver.

Competent Person. The Competent Person is the suitably trained and ADR licensed tanker driver who has been provided with the safe ullage information for a specified delivery by the consignor’s designated Site Operator. It is the responsibility of the Site Operator to ensure that anyone appointed as a Competent Person APEAtel/fax 0845 603 5507

under this definition has the necessary competence to perform the activity safely. Competence is usually gained by a combination of training and experience and is not directly age dependent. The consignor is to keep a list centrally of all persons appointed as a Competent Person under this definition.

ACoPEXTRACT 29. Adequate information about the ullage of each storage tank at the site should be available, at the time of delivery, to any tanker driver who is to unload petrol there.

Additional Guidance to ACoP Paragraph 29. The ullage information provided for the tanker driver should be in printed format and may be given to him by any electronic means that enables a hard copy to be produced. The information on this hard copy must have been verified by the Site Operator before it is transmitted to the tanker driver. The tanker driver must also verify the information using on-site systems.