03 Oct 2018

Botswana Energy Regulatory Authority (BERA) CEO, Ms Rose Seretse has appreciated government’s commitment and support towards her  organisation.

Ms Seretse was speaking at the official transfer of petroleum testing facilities from Department of Energy to BERA in Lobatse. She said the support her organisation got from government had ensured that BERA realised its mandate of providing economic regulation of the energy sector.

One of BERA responsibilities, she said was to ensure that the regulation of the energy sector was done in accordance with international best practice. 

This, Ms Seretse said,  was achieved through implementation of an effective licensing framework, setting and maintaining service standards and by ensuring that tariffs and prices were fixed on the basis of a tariff methodology that had been set up in a transparent manner, taking into account government policies. 

Meanwhile, principal engineer in the Department of Energy, Mr Baruti Regoeng said the facilities consisted of stationary and mobile laboratories to increase access and operational flexibility. Mr Regoeng stated that the facilities would be ideal for testing of diesel, petrol, paraffin and bio-diesel in accordance with specifications; BOS 576, BOS 577, BOS 578 and BOS 626 respectively; adding that the  lab followed accepted industry testing standards, including ASTM, ISO, IP for sampling and testing procedures.

He also said that the labs would carry voluntary testings for public consumer queries, Oil companies and product manufacturing companies; as well as verification for fuel product manufacturers.

The labs estimated at P5.4 million come equipped with testing apparatus, but without a distillation testing apparatus for the mobile lab. To date, Mr Regoeng indicated that they have had some achievements with the lab testing facilities as well as findings

. He said they completed all tests and produced reports for all samples brought in by clients and those sampled. Development of fuel quality standards with BOBS, Mr Regoeng said, was also one of their achievements along with creating fueling stations database.

He said  so far they had five cases of contamination with water and unknown substances.

Although they have had achievements and success, Mr Regoeng explained that they had challenges of absence of supportive legislation for enforcement of process and compliance, absence of accreditation, lack of funding allocation as well as some machines which were manual and negates computer interfacing. ENDS