Search for cheap fuel is an unrealistic hope, the team may come empty handed – IES

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.

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.”

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.”

Source: 3news.com|Ghana