Oil Storage and Transport Companies blames Railways

The Bulk Oil Storage and Transport Company Limited (BOST) said the Ghana Railway Corporation was not co-operating with its plans to rehabilitate the eastern rail line from Tema to Kumasi for the haulage of petroleum products from the Tema Oil Refinery (TOR) to Kumasi.

BOST says the rehabilitation of the line would not only enable it to haul fuel to Kumasi at a cheaper price but will also help to decongest the TOR. Nana Addo-Dankwa, Okuapemhene and Board chairman of BOST, said this during a working visit of the board members to the Kumasi Depot.

He said BOST secured a $22m loan from a South African Bank for the project as far back as January, this year and that work should have started in March this year so that by the end of the year, about 70 percent of the work would have been completed.

Nana Addo-Dankwa explained that the GRC wanted BOST to secure the loan and give the money to it to undertake the project. He said though GRC was the sole body mandated by law to run the railway system in the country, considering its track record, BOST was not prepared to borrow money and hand it over to GRC so that in the event of a failure, BOST would be held responsible for the payment.

The BOST board chairman said a South African group was ready to assist but BOST wanted to be part of management so that it would ensure that the South Africans brought their expertise to bear on GRC, adding that there was no way the company was going to take a loan and hand it over to GRC.

He said there should be a system whereby profits from the operations would be shared between BOST and GRC so that BOST can service the loan. Nana Addo-Dankwa said the rehabilitated rail line will not be used for hauling only petroleum products but would carry cocoa, timber and foodstuffs as well.

He said an inland port at Boankra cannot function without an efficient railway system which would not only serve Ghana but some countries within the sub-region, adding that the perception that BOST was delaying the smooth take off of the project was wrong.

Joseph O.K. Addo-Yobo, Managing Director of BOST said the company had as its core business, to keep six weeks of Strategic Reserves of Petroleum products for national use.

Addo-Yobo said in the event of a national disaster, the storage capacity of BOST could last for only one week. It was in this light that the company had initiated plans for the construction of additional tanks throughout the country as a means of expanding its depot network to ensure that nothing disrupted the supply of fuel.

Addo-Yobo said the Kumasi depot, the most modern and biggest would cater for the northern part of the country's petroleum requirements and disclosed that additional land had been acquired for the medium to long-term expansion of the depot.

He said besides the additional tanks to be built for premium petrol, diesel and kerosene, special tanks would be built for the storage of gas. Mathias Frank Adjei, Ashanti Regional manager of BOST, who conducted the board members round the depot, said it was closed for one-and- a half years for the expansion work, which included the construction of landing bays, a railway platform and the installation of pumps.

The board members expressed concern about the nearness of bush to the depot and asked the manager to construct fire belt around the depot to prevent bush fires before the dry season sets in.