Tema-Ghana, Feb. 10, GNA – An energy expert, Mr Samuel Otu Larbi, has warned Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) station attendants and users not to fill gas cylinders beyond 85 per cent of capacity as that could be suicidal.
“It is a hazardous practice to fill the LPG cylinder beyond 85 per cent of its capacity because gases expand. Therefore, if you fill it to the brim, you are courting the possibility of a blast at the slightest interferences,” he said.
“So simply leave room for the expansion of the product in the cylinder”.
Mr Otu Larbi, the Managing Director of Solution Solve, an energy advocacy think tank, said this during the Ghana News Agency Industrial Boardroom Dialogue in Tema, and urged stakeholders to avoid that temptation for their own safety.
He said empty cylinders must equally be handled with care because “in the technical sense when your gas cylinder stops flowing it does not mean it’s empty but that the pressure built up is low”.
Mr Otu Larbi advised the public not to shake their cylinders in the name of checking the gas level, which built pressure in the cylinder and may result in an explosion when the stove was turned on.
He advised that the valve and rubber must regularly be changed as cylinders were refilled to avoid leakage, warning that it was risky to put stones on gas cylinders to stop leakages.
He also cautioned against the patronage of home-used or second-hand LPG cylinders, because most of those had just been recycled and sprayed, and sold to unsuspecting buyers.
LPG cylinders were supposed to be subjected to standard verification every 10 years, as pertained in Togo and Benin among other countries, to ensure their potency and safety of the user, Mr Larbi said.
