Gold for oil: Second consignment of 40,000 metric tonnes arrives

Another 40,000 metric tonnes of oil have arrived in Ghana through the gold-for-oil programme.

It was delivered on Sunday, 19 February 2023, at the Tema Port.

The first consignment of 41,000 metric tonnes arrived in late December last year.

Last week, the Managing Director of the Bulk Oil Storage and Transportation Company Limited (BOST), Mr Edwin Provencal, announced that the price of fuel is expected to fall by GHS1 in the coming days as Ghana prepares to take delivery of four more oil consignments through the gold-for-oil programme.

Mr Provencal told Accra-based Asaase Radio on Monday, 13 February 2023, in an interview that BOST is working with the National Petroleum Authority (NPA) to increase these consignments.

“I can tell you for a fact that we’re working on the pricing with NPA and we should expect GHC1 reduction at the pump for gasoline,” Mr Provencal said.

He said BOST will get the needed credibility, in the long term, through the gold-for-oil policy.

He said the policy will also help BOST to solve some challenges when it comes to building a strategic reserve of stocks of petroleum products for the country.

“We are also mandated to build a strategic reserve of stocks of petroleum products to meet a minimum of six weeks of national consumption," he notrd, adding: "This, we haven’t done too well for obvious reasons."

"This is because we didn’t have the men and the money," Mr Provencal explained.

He said: "Hopefully, this programme [gold for oil] will help us solve some of these challenges in the long term.”

He added: “We used to have open credit account supplies and this means that they give you the product, after a while, you pay them without any instrument and because of the past, we abused it and we went into debt."

"So, we lost credibility in the market place," he explained.

“We are restoring that credibility. And we believe strongly that this programme [gold for oil], if it runs for a while, will give us that credibility,” he added.

So far, Ghana has received 41,000 metric tonnes of oil through the programme announced by Vice President Mahamudu Bawumia, who said: “It will fundamentally change our balance of payments and significantly reduce the persistent depreciation of our currency."