Эта страница не доступна на русском языке.
Zolzaya Gotov manages a petrol station in Mongolia’s South Gobi region, a vast, sparsely populated area of great natural beauty that also forms the cradle of the country’s mining boom.
Many of Ms Gotov’s customers are local companies who earn their living by supplying the large mines in the region. These are bringing much-needed economic development to Mongolia, where one-third of the population lives in poverty.
Zolzaya Gotov’s petrol station belongs to Magnai Trade, the second-largest petrol retailer in the country and the biggest private player in the national market. With support from the EBRD, Magnai Trade is working hard to minimise the environmental impact of its network of stations and oil storage depots, whose growth is being fuelled by the rapid development of the mining sector.
With this goal in mind, the EBRD recently organised a pioneering workshop on environmental health and safety for Magnai Trade petrol station managers, as well as for its oil storage depot engineers, oil tanker drivers and various other staff.
“Cooperation with the EBRD over recent years has enabled Magnai Trade to significantly improve its environmental standards,” says Ganzorig Regzendorj, founder and chairman of Magnai Trade. “This workshop was very important for our company as it allowed us to extend environmental awareness throughout our network, which covers every region of Mongolia.”
Some 130 participants from across the country attended the two-day training session in Ulaanbaatar, which was the first large-scale event of its kind in the Mongolian private sector. It covered a wide range of measures that Magnai Trade’s employees and franchisees can take to prevent soil, ground water and air pollution; limit fire hazards; and reduce the dangers to people working with petroleum products.
“I was very impressed by participants’ willingness to learn and by their enthusiasm to preserve the environment,” says Enrico Grassi, a Senior Banker in the EBRD’s Natural Resources team and the Magnai Trade project Operation Leader. “We designed the project specifically to encompass the whole MT group, including franchisees based in the more remote regions of Mongolia, and it is encouraging to see that this training has had so much success.”
“Whether it be reducing the risks of storage-tank leaks, making petrol stations more energy efficient or introducing recycling bins, there was a huge appetite within Magnai Trade for taking on the green agenda,” adds Alistair Clark, Director of the Environment and Sustainability department at the EBRD and a speaker at the workshop.
Improvements to environmental health and safety training are a key condition of a recent US$ 40 million EBRD loan to Magnai Trade, which is also being used to fund the company’s expansion. Since 2008, the EBRD has held a 25 per cent stake in Magnai Trade and the same year it extended a US$ 20 million loan to the company.
Magnai Trade is already a national champion when it comes to environmental responsibility. For example, it is one of the few petroleum companies in Mongolia to have equipped all of its petrol storage tanks with technology that captures volatile fuel vapours, which are a major cause of smog and are believed to be carcinogenic.
Nevertheless, the two-day training event provided valuable information from around the world on accident prevention. The workshop featured positive and negative case studies in environmental resources management, including lessons learned from the massive Buncefield oil depot fire on the outskirts of London in 2005.
“The Buncefield disaster was caused by over-filling of the storage tanks, which came about because of failures of design and maintenance in both over-fill protection systems and secondary containment systems,” says Robert Coyle, an environmental expert who coordinated the training on behalf of the EBRD. “We talked about the simple things that can be done to maximise prevention.”
At the end of the workshop, each participant committed to making three environmental health and safety improvements over the next quarter. Another workshop is planned for the near future.
“I really appreciated the training and have a much better understanding of the damaging effect that leaks and spills can have on the environment,” says Zolzaya Gotov. “The workshop also provided a unique opportunity for us to meet our colleagues from filling stations in other regions and share ideas on how best to protect the environment.”
By Mike McDonough
Last updated 5 August 2011
IN PICTURES
Comment on our work
Discuss draft country strategies
Reporting fraud and corruption
About our Public Information Policy
View all EBRD strategies and policies
Economic reports and analysis
Regional economic prospects
Transition Report
Life in Transition survey
Special report on climate change