Regularise oil bunkering services

David Amebele, Managing Director of Inter Maritime Services, has made a passionate appeal to government to regularise the oil bunkering industry.

The call is coming on the heels of a reported influx of quacks into the sector. Regularising the industry will encourage ship owners to have confidence in bunkering service providers, he said.

He also appealed for government to involve ship management experts in the bunkering business and allow indigenous bunkering companies to have direct access to gas and oil from the Tema Oil Refinery (TOR).

Amebele recalled that prior to the early 1990s the business of rendering bunkering services to vessels was in the hands of big multinational oil companies alone.

Companies like Shell Ghana, Total Ghana, Mobil Oil and Elf engaged in it, with Goil the only indigenous firm. However, in the late 1990s the trend changed as Inter Maritime Services joined the league of service providers.

Amebele told B&FT that Inter Maritime Services started by handling about 60% of Shell Ghana products (lubricants), adding that after 20 years the company has paved the way for indigenous participation in the maritime industry.