BOPEC Bonaire subject to sharpened supervision ILT and RWS
The Living Environment and Transport Inspectorate (Inspectie Leefomgeving en Transport) (ILT) will not impose administrative coercion (last onder bestuursdwang) (LOB) to the Bonaire Petroleum Corporation N.V. (BOPEC) for the time being. Rijkswaterstaat (RWS) as well will not shut down the use of the piers at the company. The storage company for fuel oil on Bonaire will be immediately subject to sharpened supervision. ILT and RWS report this after an inspection visit that took place during several days last week.
During the visit of the ILT BOPEC has demonstrated that it has the financial resources to address the main overdue maintenance urgently. The company has already started with the re-establishment of the most urgent flaws that pose risks to people and environment. The increased supervision will ensure that this will be executed in a proper and safe way. Besides BOPEC has agreed to an operation stop of the terminal for the necessary major repairs.
The sharpened supervision consists of multiple inspections in 2018 in order to check actively if BOPEC takes sufficient steps in the short term to comply with applicable regulations. In addition multiple conditional non-compliance penalties (last onder dwangsom) will be enforced to the company. This keeps high pressure on the progress of the most urgent and necessary repairs. When the situation calls for it, the administrative coercionto (last onder bestuursdwang) will be announced again, or in case of imminent danger can be enforced directly.
Permit
BOPEC has been established on Bonaire since 1974. The company has an environmental permit since 2014, but suffers serious delays in the maintenance of storage tanks, piers, pipes and electrical installations.
Inspection
Since 2014 inspections have been carried out at the three storage and transshipment companies for fuels on Bonaire (BOPEC, Curoil Hato and Curoil Airport), because the island became a Dutch Public Entity in 2010. These inspections are carried out jointly by the ILT with RWS and the fire department (Safety Region Rotterdam Rijnmond on behalf of the Brandweer Korps Caribisch Nederland). This year the Inspectorate of Social Affairs and Labour (I-SZW) will join the inspections.