An Overview of the Oil and Gas Sector in Ghana by Kingsley Sarpong of Chase Petroleum

Kingsley Sarpong, Managing Director of Chase Petroleum Ghana Ltd, shares his assessment of the oil and gas industry in Ghana. Chase Petroleum is an oil trading and distribution company that engages in the transportation, storage, and distribution of petroleum products in Ghana and to some land-locked countries in West Africa.

“The oil and gas sector in Ghana is still growing. The upstream is strong, the midstream has a bit of challenges in terms of refineries, and the downstream has done very well and continues to grow. We have seen some changes over time, from when the industry was instituted to date, and there have been a lot of reforms as we go along. The government has allowed a lot of players to come in. We have some multinationals as well as local companies which are growing. There are also local content policies in place to support the local players. The industry has really improved. We are regulated by the National Petroleum Authority (NPA) whose key policy focus is on the removal of government control (deregulation) with the following objectives: Removal of restrictions on the importation of crude oil and petroleum products, Removal of restrictions on the establishment and operation of facilities, Price De-control (Price liberalization). The last phase of the deregulating the sector will be to take government control off the transportation. Price liberalization in 2015 has removed Government subsidy and allowed market force to determine prices to the benefit of consumers. NPA monitors and ensures service providers do not cheat consumers. We have about 129 OMCs. We have about 31 BDCs. We have about 42 LPG OMCs. We have 12 companies with storage depots in the country. The state controls about 74% of the storage capacity in Ghana. The private sector today controls about 26% of the storage facilities in Ghana. Total annual national consumption is about 3.5million tons and storage capacity in Ghana is a little bit above 1 million metric tons. We have four refineries, the highest of them with a refinery capacity of 45,000 barrels a day with at least one having about 1,700 barrels a day of production capacity. In terms of transport operators, we have 432 operators in the country. We have over 3,000 bulk registered vehicles (BRVs) for the movement of products from one location to the other. In terms of retail outlets in Ghana today, we have about 5,600 retail outlets in the country. The country has a Zonalization Policy aimed at of decentralizing the distribution of petroleum products retail outlets to load products from nearest depot. We have five main loading and distribution zones i.e Kumasi, Takoradi, Buipe, Bolgatanga and Tema. The Tema zone controls over 50% of national consumption and Kumasi controls about 29% with the others controlling 21%. We have been regulated under the NPA Act 691 of 2005 with L.I. 2186 that defines the pricing formula for petroleum products in Ghana”, says Kingsley Sarpong.

FAIR USE POLICY
This material (including media content) may not be published, broadcasted, rewritten, or redistributed. However, linking directly to the page (including the source, i.e. Marcopolis.net) is permitted and encouraged.