The Executive Director of the African Centre Energy Policy (ACEP), Benjamin Boakye has said regarding the government’s search for cheap fuel, that he is not aware of any company or government that is ready to sell fuel below the market prices unless there is something to gain for it.
To that end, he said, the government must be pushed to explain the discount that the country will be getting from the companies that are being engaged.
President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo announced in his address on Sunday October 30 that the government was working to secure reliable and regular sources of affordable petroleum products for the Ghanaian market to stabilise fuel prices.
Information Minister Kojo Oppong Nkrumah had said that the government has tasked the Energy Ministry and the National Petroleum Authority (NPA) to find reliable and cheaper sources of fuel.
He said “The deregulated market we have here where BDCs import from big companies on high fees from the refinery wherever and bring them in is contributing to the quickened escalation of fuel prices.
“To arrest it, the Energy Ministry working through NPA and other agencies etc is been tasked to finding reliable, cheaper sources of fuel for the Republic so that the OMCs locally can tap into and hopefully halt that escalation in fuel prices.”
Reacting to this on the News 360 on TV3 Thursday November 2, Mr Ben Boakye said “what I am not sure is the proposal on the table. Government itself says they are going to look for a cheaper product for consumer.
“I find that like looking for milk in the global oil market, I do not see any company or any government that wants to trade oil below the market prices unless there is something to gain for it.
“Maybe we have to push government for a broader conversation on what they are given for the supposed discount for the from the companies that they are engaging.”
Regarding this matter, the Institute Energy Security has said that the government is embarking on an unrealistic mission in search of of cheap reliable fuel around the world.
The IES in a statement issued on Thursday November 3 said “Meanwhile, the search for that heavily discounted fuel price from elsewhere is an unrealistic hope, and the team may return empty handed, unless the expectation/request is exchanged with something valuable to the would-be supplier.
“If His Excellency the President and the handlers of Ghana’s Energy Ministry look within, they would find what they are desperately looking for from outside the country. Indeed the search for reliable and affordable source of petroleum products starts with the Tema Oil Refinery, which has been down since March 2021, due to lack of crude oil which is the refinery’s main raw material.
“It beats ones imagination how an oil producing country with a refinery capacity of 45,000 barrels per stream day (bpsd), would have it top government officials abandon its domestic competitive advantage, and rather seek to import refined petroleum product elsewhere, in the name of reliability and affordability.”
