Kenndy Nyarko: It’s Erroneous To Suggest Fuel Should Be Cheaper Because Ghana Produces Oil

Kennedy Nyarko Osei, Member of Parliament for Akim Swedru has said the conception that fuel should be cheaper in Ghana because the country is an oil producer is a misconceived one and must be discarded.

In a Facebook post, he noted that the agreements the government of Ghana has at the moment allots to Ghana, only seventeen per cent (17) of the total oil extracts Ghana gets from all its oil fields on average.

He referenced the production data of the year 2021 to raise his argument.

“Data available indicates that in 2021 we were producing 174,000 barrels a day. This figure translates to about 65,510,000 barrels annually. With the current arrangements, it means that only 10,796,700 barrels come to the state annually. The above figure of 10,796,700 barrels translates to 1.7 billion litres of oil. This represents about 37.3% of our annual fuel consumption demand which stands at 4.6 billion litres in 2021.

“Based on the above details it will be erroneous for anybody to suggest that because Ghana is producing oil, petrol prices at the pump should be cheaper”, he stated.

According to him, this is significantly insufficient to meet the country’s demand, much less contributing to low fuel prices.

“Even if the Government decides to process all our 17% here in Ghana, the Government will still have to import the remaining 62.7% to meet our annual fuel consumption.”

Kennedy Nyarko outlined that with the analysis, Ghana can only meet its annual demand if it is able to produce 470,000 barrels a day with the current arrangements it has and build a refinery that can process about 140,000 barrels a day to meet its daily demands.

Source: opemsuo.com/Hajara Fuseini