\n
![\"Charles](\"http:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/08\/charles-ewart-mug.jpg\")
<\/a>\nTyphoon Soudelor\u2019s destructive winds caused a number of cargo containers to fly into Mobil\u2019s terminal at the Port of Saipan, with one damaging a tank containing Super Unleaded gasoline.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat happened was that we had an uncontrolled leak coming out of the tank and it went into the containment area\u2026the product was going out of the tank and it was very flammable and evaporates very quickly,\u201d Ewart said.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo it was creating a vapor cloud that is very flammable,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
Ewart said their staff, who are trained for these situation, had to use foam to put over the leakage to separate the gasoline from the environment and create a barrier between the two.<\/p>\n
Aside from barricading the problem, another problem was the vapors that needed to be contained. Any equipment that requires ignition to operate such as generators could not be used while the vapor cloud is still in the open.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo we had to reduce the potential of ignition sources and all electricity within the area,\u201d Ewart said.<\/p>\n
He said the consequences of something going wrong at the terminal could have resulted in the loss of the entire stock of fuel on Saipan and access to the terminal. It wasn\u2019t until Aug. 5 that the problem was fixed.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve heard through the radio over and over that we\u2019re late in opening but we we\u2019re focused first on containing it. If something could have gone wrong, then there wouldn\u2019t be any supplies,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIP&E has their own terminal, which is right next to our terminal. Their terminal is downwind of the vapors and they weren\u2019t allowed to use electricity but they could get the fuel into their trucks by gravity feed.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIf there had been an escalation of events at our terminal, there was a high probability that the terminal would have had to close as well,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Once the issue with the terminal was solved, that\u2019s when service stations were opened.<\/p>\n
Yesterday Mobil opened up nine service stations. Today, Aug. 12, Ewart hopes that they would get 10 stations up.<\/p>\n
Too much fuel<\/strong><\/p>\n Ewart noted that there wouldn\u2019t be any fuel shortage because the Commonwealth Utilities Corp. hasn\u2019t used its power plant for a week.<\/p>\n \u201cThere is no way the amount of generators operating today are using the amount used by the power plant,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n \u201cIn fact, the issue isn\u2019t there is not enough diesel, the issue is there is too much diesel,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n A supply ship is coming and Ewart hopes it comes in by Aug. 16 but not all of its supply could be offloaded.<\/p>\n \u201cThe ship has product ready to replenish what CUC should have purchased but CUC hasn\u2019t purchased because the power plant hasn\u2019t gone up\u2026So not all the fuel would be offloaded because there isn\u2019t enough space,\u201d Ewart said.<\/p>\n Saipan gets replenished with fuel once a month. Two smaller ships go to Rota and Tinian for replenishment. The ship goes to Guam first then Saipan and other areas in the Pacific.<\/p>\n \u201cIf we need fuel here, we can replenish it and have a ship come here. In about four and a half weeks there would be another ship coming here,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Moving forward, when asked if Mobil has any takeaway lessons from what happened, Ewart said it is too early in the process to be planning at this time, but they will be coming up with such a plan next week.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Mobil service stations on Saipan failed to open immediately after Typhoon Soudelor hit Saipan on…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":45,"featured_media":207782,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[900],"tags":[1949,49,50,6333],"class_list":["post-207781","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","tag-charles-ewart","tag-cuc","tag-power","tag-typhoon-soudelor"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/207781","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/45"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=207781"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/207781\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/207782"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=207781"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=207781"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=207781"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}