Sinopec not to blame for LPG woes, report says
The government has been unable to blame Sinopec for causing thousands of taxis and minibuses to break down earlier this year, although it spotted irregularities in how the city's largest supplier of liquified petroleum gas handled the fuel.
Taxi drivers - who suffered the most and plan to sue Sinopec for lost income - were disappointed at the findings and blamed the government for collecting samples too late.
A task force set up in January to investigate why thousands of taxis and minibuses stalled while running on Sinopec fuel revealed its findings yesterday after some delays.
However, instead of providing a definite answer, the Electrical and Mechanical Services Department, which led the task force, said only that a water draining procedure - the removal of water and impurities from the LPG - might not have been conducted according to the company's guidelines, and that 'might have affected LPG qualities'.
Sinopec's operational procedures state LPG should be allowed to settle in the storage tank for eight hours under normal circumstances so impurities and water can sink to the bottom of the tank for removal later.
Even when turnover was tight, a minimum settlement time of four hours was still necessary.
However, officials found that in the three weeks before the surge in stalling engines - between December 31 and January 3 - there were eight occasions on which Sinopec staff shortened the water draining procedure to less than four hours. In one case it was done in about 1 hour and 36 minutes.
On December 30 and January 1, the settlement procedures were finished in about 3 hours and 48 minutes and 2 hours and 42 minutes hours respectively - both below the requirement.
Ringo Lee Yiu-pui, a member of the task force, said using LPG that contained water was like injecting air bubbles into the blood system - it could be fatal to the engine.
'Water contains air. When the air bubble reaches the engine, it will result in a momentary lapse of LPG supply and the car will break down.'
Lee said a small amount of water was found in some of the 14 LPG samples collected from Sinopec's depot, petrol stations and taxis. But laboratory tests on the mainland and in Germany concluded there was not enough water in the samples to affect vehicle performance.
A taxi unionist who has been seeking ways to get compensation from Sinopec said the lab results were to be expected. 'Most of the breakdowns happened before January 3, but officials did not begin collecting LPG samples until January 7. Of course they couldn't find anything,' said Lai Ming-hung of the Taxi and Public Light Bus Concern Group.
Mechanical services department deputy director Frank Chan Fan said one of the 14 samples was collected from the fuel tank of a taxi that repeatedly broke down on January 2.
Sinopec managing director Feng Lianhua said the LPG started to settle before it was put in storage tanks, meaning water-draining procedures did meet the four-hour standard.
The LPG supplier said it would, however, review its operational procedures and add another layer of filtering in their gas tanks and gas stations. It would also consider providing promotional offers for taxi and minibus drivers and helping with any maintenance and repair problems.
Mechanical services director Stephen Chan Hung-cheung said task force members believed the condition of some taxis might have contributed to the breakdowns, as 86 per cent of affected vehicles were seven to 10 years old, with an average mileage of 940,000 kilometres. Still, he said the government would step up monitoring of LPG suppliers.
