NEW YORK-Exxon Corp., Irvine, Texas, has posted signs at its domestic filling stations requiring customers to turn off their wireless phones before filling their cars’ gas tanks due to the slight chance the devices could ignite a fire.
Esso Sekiyu K.K. and General Sekiyu K.K., two Exxon affiliates in Japan, have instructed their employees to ask customers not to use their handsets when filling up.
“Aside from fire, the ban may be the result of concerns for customers fitted with pacemakers and for computers controlling fuel pump systems” because cellular phone signals can interfere with these kinds of electrical equipment, said Koya Ogino, a researcher at Kyoto University.
Chicago-based BP Amoco already has implemented a ban on using cell phones when fueling at its stations in Australia and the United Kingdom. It plans to do the same in the United States as soon as it can get the signs made and installed, probably within a few months, said Tom Mueller, pubic affairs adviser for the oil company.
The Petroleum Association of Japan said there is a possibility of vaporized gas around the fuel station pumps being ignited by weak electrical fields present when cellular phones are in use, especially when receiving calls. The association is gathering information from around the world.
Christina Martin, vice president of communications for the Cellular Telecommunications Industry Association, Washington, D.C., said Exxon told CTIA it has not had a problem with cellular phone use igniting fuel pump fires.
However, Exxon said it is responding to wireless phone manufacturer advisories that all electrical devices run this slight risk when turned on. Ericsson Inc., Nokia Corp. and Motorola Inc. include this warning in their instructional manuals for phones sold worldwide because of a longstanding United Kingdom law requiring this admission by all electronic device manufacturers, Martin said.
CTIA also spoke with Royal Dutch/Shell Group and the American Petroleum Institute, both of which said they have not confirmed any instances of a cell phone-induced gas station fire. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms Explosives and Arson Laboratory informed CTIA that “such a scenario is an extremely remote scenario,” Martin said.
Showa Shell Sekiyu K.K., a Japanese affiliate of Shell, said in early June it would require its employees to ask customers at the gas pumps to turn off their wireless phones, Kyodo News Service reported.
CTIA’s Martin said the wireless industry organization is unaware of any other oil company besides Exxon imposing this requirement on customers.
Martin said there had been an Internet posting out of Indonesia reporting one incident of a wireless phone igniting fuel at a gas station pump. However, she said, no one has been able to confirm that report.
To CTIA’s knowledge, there has never to date been such an occurrence, she added.
