The Tribune

By NATARIO McKENZIE

Tribune Business Reporter

nmckenzie@tribunemedia.net

RUBIS executives say remediation efforts to address an underground gas leak at its Robinson Road station are on schedule, with the company making a significant investment in the upgrades and maintenance to ensure such an incident does not occur again at any of ts properties.

Describing the leak as an “unfortunate incident”, Byron Ferguson, the company’s sales and marketing manager for the western Caribbean, said it was actively addressing the issue. The remediation effort at the Robinson Road station is part of a wider “clean-up” exercise stemming from RUBIS’ acquisition of the Bahamas’ Texaco business last year.

“We have closed that station so we can more quickly expedite the remediation process, and that’s going quite well,” Mr Ferguson said.

“We have contracted a world-renowned international company to oversee the clean-up, and they’re working in conjunction with a local company, Baychem Spill Tech, and doing a great job in getting the entire situation under control.

“They’re on schedule. It’s a lot of work to be done. It’s an unfortunate incident. RUBIS is not turning away from it. Our goal is to get the best minds and technology involved to do what we need to do to look after the environment and make sure all of our retail sites are up to standard.”

Mr Ferguson added: “We have been doing a lot of investment in terms of upgrading and maintaining our existing sites to ensure that something like this does not happen again. Robinson Road is definitely being dealt with and that’s moving on schedule.”

It is unclear how much fuel has leaked into the ground at Robinson Road, but the situation has raised serious environmental concerns, enough to prompt Cable Bahamas to relocate its customer service staff from its Robinson Road offices.

According to Tribune Business sources, the gasoline leak came from an underground fuel tank at the Texaco station on Robinson Road. “The tank in the ground has had a leak, it has leaked for years and the fuel is under Cable Bahamas’ customer care building,” one source said.

RUBIS entered the Bahamian market mid-2012, after Chevron concluded the sale of its fuels marketing and aviation businesses in the Bahamas, Cayman Islands and Turks & Caicos to Vitogaz, a wholly-owned subsidiary of the French multinational.

RUBIS gained ownership of 39 retail stations, eight aviation facilities, six fuel terminals and one joint operation at the Nassau airport terminal, and a commercial and industrial fuels business.