Ghana to become West Africa’s hub for quality petroleum products

Government, through the Energy ministry, has revealed its projections for the country’s petroleum downstream sector, which is to become West Africa’s preferred hub for quality refined petroleum products.

This, according to government would be achieved through the expansion and improvement of existing infrastructure that ensures the delivery of petroleum products and services in a secure manner.

Speaking at the National Petroleum Downstream Colloquium held on Wednesday, under the theme, “Ghana’s petroleum downstream: then, now and the future”, the minister of Energy, Boakye Agyarko explained that despite the challenges experienced by the downstream sector which used to dominate Ghana’s oil and gas industry, the sector has the potential to address them and move forward.

He added that the move will require that new laws are made and existing policies and regulations which formerly posed challenges are amended.

“The Government through the NPA is taking steps focused on transforming the downstream sector from its present state towards achieving Government’s vision of making Ghana a hub for refined petroleum products in the West African sub-region. This goal may require the passage of new legislation or the amendment of the existing ones” he said.

According to the Minister, government aims at addressing the challenges through the inclusion of local participants in the sector, financial and regulatory framework, coordination among petroleum service providers and regulatory agencies as well as Government’s participation.

He further stated that government will introduce a new Downstream petroleum act which will deal with licensing and permitting, re-alignment of regulatory mandates, construction and operation of downstream facilities, tariffs and financial transactions in order to transform the sector into a petroleum hub.

Over the past six years, the petroleum downstream industry which is one of the sub-sectors of Ghana’s petroleum sector has grown from a total of 8 Bulk distribution Companies to 40; the number of LPG marketing companies has grown from 81 to 153. The sector has also contributed about GHc46 billion to Ghana’s GDP from the year 2013 to 2016.

Gov’t set to increase Ghana’s petroleum exploration activities

The Energy Minister, Boakye Agyarko early this month, unveiled government’s intention to pursue effective petroleum basin promotion in an attempt to attract companies to invest in petroleum exploration and production processes.

The goal, according to him was to pursue aggressive basin promotion especially in the Central, Eastern, Outer Continental Shelf, and Voltaian basins to attract competent companies, particularly the major ones into these basins to increase exploration activities.

Commercial discoveries from such exploration will not only increase the country’s reserves but create needed jobs and significantly increase revenue to the state, he added.

Watch Video:

www.primenewsghana.com/GhanaNews