Ghana begins fuel exports to Nigeria, others

Ghana has started exporting fuel and gas oil to the landlocked
countries of Burkina Faso, Niger and Mali from the Bolgatanga
Petroleum Depot.

The state-owned Bulk Oil Storage and Transportation Company (BOST)
Limited, is also supplying petroleum products from the same depot to
Benin Republic and Nigeria.

Ghana's Minister of Petroleum, Mr Emmanuel Armah-Kofi Buah, who made
this known at the meet-the-press series in Accra, said there were
plans to extend the exports to Liberia in the coming months.

The minister said the vision of the government was to make Ghana the
hub for the distribution of petroleum products in the West African
sub-region.

The Bolgatanga Petroleum Depot, with a capacity of 46 million litres
of refined gasoline and gas oil, was re-inaugurated in August 2015.

Buah said Ghana had been ushered into a new gas era that would
guarantee its energy security for the next two decades.

"Despite the global downturn in the oil industry, we have managed to
increase production.

"Ghanaians have been empowered to be at the forefront of the industry
and a liberalised petroleum downstream sector with strong private
sector participation where product availability, competition, better
customer service and lower prices are making Ghana the preferred
destination for doing business in the sub-region," he said.

He said the Ghana Gas Company (Ghana Gas) had completed the extension
of its pipeline to the battery limit of the West Africa Gas Pipeline
Company's (WAPCo's) Regulatory and Metering Station at Aboadze and
indicated that Ghana Gas was awaiting WAPCo to interconnect.

"In the long term, a 290-km onshore pipeline to ensure gas supply
reliability and downstream infrastructure expandability is planned.

"Additional volumes will, in the long term, provide the opportunity
for Ghana to realise its vision to utilise gas for the other
industrial uses, beyond power generation, such as fertiliser and
petrochemicals," he said.

Buah said Ghana's strategic stock was at an all-time high, with about
one million metric tonnes of petroleum products imported from January
to June 2016.

He said the feat was chalked up following the restructuring of BOST,
which had been successful in ensuring the availability of petroleum
products in the country.

"The restructuring of BOST has resulted in a turnaround in the
performance of this strategic national asset which is now successfully
fulfilling its mandate of ensuring the availability of petroleum
products," he said.

--Vanguard