SIX employees at the Porgera gold mine in Papua New Guinea are now certified to handle Jet A1 fuel, thanks to a recent training delivered at the mine site.Three are locals from Porgera including Nyata Enenge from Kulapi villlage, which is situated in the vicinity of the mine and within the special mining lease area.
Barrick (Niugini) Limited business services superintendent Elias Keyiken, said the company ensured employees dealing directly with aviation re-fuelling and storage, had the appropriate certification in order for operations to be up to standard with best practices.
He particularly noted Enenge’s achievement having been able to learn on the job and now certified for the task he has performed passionately for more than 25 years.
The four-day aviation competency education training was conducted by Aviation Solution Specialist Limited managing director Tom Peto.
The course is part of a global training program adopted from the SHELL major module. It is a requirement by Civil Aviation Safety Authority for the training to be undertaken every two years.
The modules are centred on the major and obvious aspects of fuel handling and re-fuelling, highlighting also the importance of quality control. These included manual handling; understanding the health, safety, security and environment risks involved in handling fuel, static electricity, product knowledge, quality control, filtration, tank farm operations, vehicle loading, and fuelling equipment.
Mr Peto said much of the training was focused at achieving high levels of quality control checks on the way jet fuel was handled.
"Aviation re-fuelers will always do a quality control check on jet fuel before it goes into an aircraft. If the aircraft fuel is contaminated, the plane cannot fly.
"Fuel handlers must be competent enough to conduct these quality control checks on jet fuel.
"There is no room for errors," he said.
The six participants received certificates at the end of the training course.