Energy Ministry: Fuel Security Not Under Threat

The Ministry of Energy has assured Ghanaians that there is no threat of fuel shortage in the country, contrary to media reports.

The assurance comes amidst a report by Bloomberg that Ghana faces a looming fuel shortage as the central bank rations dollars after oil prices surged following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Speaking with sit-in host Benjamin Offei-Addo on the Asaase Breakfast Show on Friday (24 June) public relations officer of the ministry Kwasi Obeng-Fosu said “… and as I speak to you now, we have a whole month of fuel security as a nation.”

“I can assure you that the meeting between the Chamber of Bulk Oil Distributors and the ministry in the last few days is all geared towards that. We have fuel security,” Obeng-Fosu said.

“And as we always say, our request and demand for fuel as a nation, we are not under any threat because we have enough onshore in our storage,” he said.

He said the ministry would soon come out with measures aimed at dealing with the concerns of the Bulk Oil Distributors on access to forex.

Dr Theo Acheampong, an international petroleum economist based in the United Kingdom has called on the Bank of Ghana (BoG) to make available dollars for the Bulk Oil Distribution Companies (BDCs) to avert any looming fuel shortage.
Acheampong described Ghana’s three-month import cover as very worrying.

“I think it is two-fold, one is the public communications management aspect of things; so I expect the Bulk Oil Storage and Transportation (BOST), the National Petroleum Authority (NPA) and the Ministry of Energy public relations management to issue various statement telling Ghanaians about the situation.”

“And what steps they are taking to ameliorate it, including the fact that we have some stock to last us a while. And secondly, the difficult choice, which is, the Bank of Ghana (BoG) would have to make a bit more dollars available to the Bulk Oil Distribution Companies (BDCs) to meet import requirement in the short term,” Acheampong said.

The petroleum economist also advised government to facilitate process towards the revamping of the Tema Oil Refinery (TOR) to help address the challenge.

“If we do not solve in a holistic manner the fuel sector teething issues … we will continue to use our hard-earned money for fuel importation. If we do not sort out the fundamental issues like local processing [of fuel] then we will only be dealing with the periphery of issues,” he said.

Source: Asaase Radio