BASSETERRE, St. Kitts – REPRESENTATIVES of two rival petroleum suppliers in St. Kitts and Nevis clashed yesterday morning (Nov. 14) over the ownership of a number of liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) cylinders.
Country Manager for SOL EC St. Kitts-Nevis Ivan Hanley, Managing Director of C&C Trading and local distributor for SOL LPG Scott Caines, and a number of SOL’s employees turned up at the Delta Petroleum Gas Station in Camps Village and identified nine 100-pound and three 20-pound gas cylinders that belong to their company.
According to Hanley, they are positive that the cylinders found on Delta’s premises belong to SOL because they all have his company’s markings engraved upon them.
On arrival at the gas station, this media house also saw members of the Criminal Investigation Department conducting investigations. As a result of their findings, the cylinders were loaded onto a vehicle belonging to SOL and taken into police custody. Some of the cylinders were marked SOL and others SLH and Texaco logo.
Hanley told this media house that his company’s cylinders were being used by Delta to compete for the sale of cooking gas, and not only does this illegal action deprive them of revenue but it also poses a safety hazard.
“What is happening is that our bottles are being filled by competitors. This poses a couple of issues for us. One is that from the perspective of safety, and secondly from the loss of opportunity to sell. It is understood that Delta personnel and also customers are bringing their cylinders to the Delta facility to be refilled. The cylinders are owned by SOL EC Ltd. However, the process works whereby a customer would lease the cylinder from us and we in turn would refill and maintain the cylinder.
“They are profiting from SOL bottles and this constitutes a major safety hazard. Should a customer encounters any leakage which results in an explosion or causes health problems because the bottles were not serviced or properly inspected, SOL can be held responsible,” Hanley said.
Hanley noted that the situation is an ongoing one and is in excess of over four years. He also noted that every Sunday they would drive around the island with the aim of identifying cylinders with SOL’s markings that are in possession of their competitors.
“This is not the first time SOL had to seek the police involvement. It has gotten to the point where the number of SOL bottles in Delta’s possession has increased significantly. At one time in the past, the police got involved and went as far as to contact the island’s representative for Delta, Mr. Joseph Esdaille, and also the company’s representative in New York, Mr. Andrew Dafnos. This has happened over the last six weeks…they have basically said that they had filled the cylinders; so there is no doubt about that. However, they resisted turning over the cylinders to us this morning.”
The Country Manager declared that SOL’s loss is estimated at 150 cylinders per year over a four-year period, and that each cylinder costs approximately EC$350.
Speaking to the media, Caines told of an incident involving a number of SOL’s cylinders that were removed from a customer’s premises by Delta.
“I am the authorised distributor on St. Kitts and Nevis for SOL. About two months ago, we had a similar situation with a customer. We went to deliver gas to the customer, and when we arrived at the customer’s premises we realised that our cylinders were removed and Delta’s cylinders were there.
“We immediately removed Delta’s cylinders and put them on our premises and called the police to assist us in resolving the matter. What we did to assist the customer immediately is to give them four tanks of gas - both the cylinders and propane – without charging them, so that they would not have been out of pocket. And the police had instructed Delta to return our bottles to us…which they did.”
In an attempt to get a comment on the issue from the Shift Manager of Delta Petroleum Gas Station, she told this media house that she had nothing to say. She had also ordered members of the media off the premises when an attempt was made to get Caines to point out the cylinders that belong to his company.
