Petroleum regulator firms up new guidelines for transporting petroleum products by road

New Delhi: India’s Petroleum and Natural Gas Regulatory Board has issued fresh guidelines on transporting petroleum products by road in the wake of recent tragic accidents involving trucks carrying liquified petroleum gas, or LPG.

The regulator has prohibited transporting petroleum products by road at night and mandated quarterly safety checks of vehicles to ensure that all safety fittings are installed, maintained and tested, as per its regulations.

PNGRB suggested avoiding roads to transport bulk petroleum products over long distances and using pipelines or railway rakes instead. It added that spare pipeline capacity of oil marketing companies be utilized under product sharing or as common carriers to transport petroleum products.

On 10 December, the regulator proposed developing nine LPG pipelines with a cumulative length of 3,470 km to connect 50 bottling plants with ports and refineries.

“In view of the recent road incident involving the transportation of LPG in tank truck resulting in several casualties and injuries, PNGRB has reviewed the relevant existing statutory rules/regulations, contractual obligations between the entity and transporter, existing practices, etc.,” the regulator said in a recent notification.

“While deciding the mode of travel, commerciality should not be the only consideration. Public safety is also an important consideration, particularly when the travel is over long distance and through congested areas,” PNGRB added.

The board has asked oil marketing companies to develop comprehensive journey management plans covering aspects such as authorized stops along a particular route, sensitising drivers and crews on black spots and accident-prone areas, emergency actions to be taken in case of accidents, weather forecast for the route, and other foreseeable hazards enroute.

Adequate rest for drivers

PNGRB strictly prohibited transporting petroleum products by tankers or lorries between 11pm and 6am, adding that the timings could be determined taking into account factors such as fog, local restrictions, and security. 

“For those stretches of roads where there are local restrictions and driving in the restricted hours are unavoidable, entity to designate nodal officer at the state/regional/zonal level for making suitable relaxations,” the board said in its guidelines.

PNGRB also mandated that transport workers not be asked to work more than eight hours a day and 48 hours a week, and that all motor transport workers should be provided rest intervals of at least half an hour after every five hours of work. 

Under no circumstances shall the period of work exceed five hours a stretch, it added.

The new guidelines on transporting petroleum products by road come after recent road accidents that killed several people. In December, an LPG tanker and a truck collided on the Jaipur-Ajmer highway, killing 13 people and leaving about 30 with burn injuries. In January, a tanker carrying 18 tonnes of LPG met with an accident in Coimbatore, causing a minor gas leak and bringing the city to a partial halt.