Liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) transportation and storage in Ghana: The safety perspective

The recent discovery of oil and gas in commercial quantities and the subsequent extraction, coupled with a three decade old action plan on Liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) usage, has led to a significant rise in the use of the commodity in Ghana. However the transportation, storage and use of LPG in the country has been rocked with a number of safety challenges that has resulted in ten major reported explosions in the last five years leading to some 33 fatalities. In this work, the key issues militating against the safe transportation, storage and use of LPG in Ghana; over reliance on road transport as the sole means of transporting the commodity, lack of gas leak detectors at LPG stations, inadequate knowledge on the commodity by major industry players, unskilled labor and logistical constraints are brought to the fore. Administrative control measures including; stringent rules on LPG transportation and storage, effective supervision to ensure appropriate safety gadgets are installed at LPG stations and advocacy on the part of the regulator are among the feasible hierarchy of accident control measures, to arrest the identified hazards with the sector in Ghana.