Residents complain of petrol smell in the air

A pungent smell, similar to petrol, filled the air around Port Rashid yesterday, leading many concerned residents to contact Gulf News or the emergency services.

Civil Defence personnel went on a hunt to discover its source, but authorities said they believed it was caused by a procedure at the port to purge gases from a ship. However, this has been doubted by port insiders.

The smell became noticeable in the Hamriya area at about 1pm. Reda Salman, head of the Environmental Protection and Safety unit at the municipality, confirmed that an oil tanker was being purged as "a gas venting operation" in the dry dock close to the port.

He told Gulf News that such a procedure is acceptable provided that the wind is blowing out to sea, so the smell does not reach Dubai.

Salman said people smelt the gas because the wind was blowing towards the city. "We still don't have all the details and we'll have to look into all the reports to be able to specify why the operation took place at a time when the wind was blowing in the wrong direction."

He said the smell caused temporary pollution, but that it was not poisonous. Salman said that in future cases people who detect a bad smell indoors should simply open their windows to allow the smell to blow away.

Gulf News was still receiving enquiries about the source of the smell until 6pm, and it would appear that Dubai Municipality had not informed the public about the gas leak and had not told people what action to take. Residents of Diyafah Road said the smell was in the air even at 8pm.

Sources at the Civil Defence said their operations room had received many phone calls about the smell. They initially thought it was a leak somewhere in the city. Once the smell was traced to Port Rashid, municipal officials from the environment department were sent to investigate.

"There are no reports of injuries or material damage, it just caused confusion," a spokesman said.

A marine superintendent who declined to be named said it was unlikely that the smell originated from a purging ship and he explained the purging process.

"If a ship was loading petroleum products and then has to load another petroleum product, it has to flush out first, to release petrochemical gases. That's done with water, which makes it flammable. So, an 'inert' gas basically a heavy gas that's non-combustible is pumped into the tank. That disperses any remaining hydrocarbon gases."

The superintendent said purging is done offshore, and certainly would not be done in the dry docks. "No, because there's hot works there welding and metal works which release sparks, so there's a likelihood of ignition."

"The tanker is cleaned before it reaches the dry dock."

In Port Rashid, he said cleaning could be done but only 12 parts hydrocarbon gas per million could be released. "That's something you wouldn't really smell."

He suggested that the smell could have been caused by two things.

"Either somebody is careless, or it could be a surge tank either on a terminal or on shore containing petrochemical spirits or products. There may have been too much pressure inside the tank, which causes the pressure vacuum valve to lift. That releases gas, which could cause a smell."

But by yesterday evening, the Gulf Agency Company, which usually deals with such issues, said it had not received any phone calls regarding the issue.