Ghana begins fuel exports to Nigeria, other W'Africa nations

Ghana begins fuel exports to Nigeria, other W'Africa nations

- Ghana has started exporting fuel and gas oil to Nigeria, Benin Republic, Burkina Faso, Niger and Mali from the Bolgatanga Petroleum Depot

- The West African country has moved to extend the exports to Liberia in the coming months

Ghana has started exporting fuel and gas oil to the landlocked countries of West Africa, including Nigeria.

According to a report on Vanguard, Ghana has started exporting fuel and gas oil to the Burkina Faso, Niger and Mali from the Bolgatanga Petroleum Depot.

Ghana begins fuel exports to Nigeria, other W'Africa nations
Ghana has started exporting fuel and gas oil to the Burkina Faso, Niger, Mali, Benin Republic and Nigeri from the Bolgatanga Petroleum Depot

READ ALSO: Nigeria’s oil and gas reserves running out - NNPC

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.

This was disclosed by Emmanuel Armah-Kofi Buah, Ghana’s Minister of Petroleum at the meet-the-press series in Accra on Thursday, October 7.

Buah 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, even as he added that Ghana had been ushered into a new gas era that would guarantee its energy security for the next two decades.

He said: “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 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.

According to him, this achievement is due to the restructuring of BOST, which had been successful in ensuring the availability of petroleum products in the country.

He said: “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.”

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

READ ALSO: #Nigeria@56: Senate offers 21 point resolution to Buhari

The discovery of oil in Ghana in 2007, added to its gold and cocoa wealth and its other major asset, stable democracy, gave it a chance to start catching up with oil giant Nigeria and regional West African economic powerhouse Ivory Coast.

While Nigeria on the other hand, has entered a recession and it's largely the work of the oil industry.

The country's economy contracted by 2.06% in the second quarter, between April and June, this year, according to figures from the Nigerian Bureau of Statistics (NBS). That's the second straight quarter of declining growth or "the usual definition of recession."

Declining oil prices have hurt a number of countries worldwide, like Brazil or Russia, as well as U.S. towns that saw massive growth amid a fracking boom. Nigeria was hit especially hard by the decline in oil since crude oil sales account for 70% of government income.

Source: Legit.ng

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