Special topics
Ghanaians are calling for the Tema Oil Refinery (TOR) to be revived to reduce the burden on consumers of petroleum products.
This was revealed at the maiden Starr Summit on petroleum held at the Best Western Hotel in Accra Thursday.
Some of the participants who shared their opinions at the summit added that the current system of petroleum pricing is unsustainable.
Duncan Amoah, Executive Secretary of the Chamber of Petroleum Consumers said: “We have said variously and consistently that Ghana’s petroleum chain if we don’t manage carefully we would get worse than the Nigeria situation.
“It was not for nothing that Nkrumah saw the need in 1963 in putting a refinery for Ghanaians; it was supposed to serve two key purposes – in anticipation of Ghana striking a commercial oil find so that when we get this oil in commercial quantities we would not be found wanton, there would be a ready refinery.
“The second point is that when you have a reliable refinery what it does is that it gives you a reliable pricing because crude price on the world market is lower than that of the finished product so the current system where the private capital going in for finished product as opposed going in for crude such that TOR would have done the refinery and taken in their tolling, even at that the ex refinery difference would still have been lower”.
A former Chief Executive of the National Petroleum Authority Ken Attafuah argued that the NPA has breached the trust by refusing to disclose what exactly the stabilisation levy is about.
The Starr Summit is an initiative intended to offer expert minds on opportunity for thorough discussion on selected themes of national relevance.
Source: http://www.starrfmonline.com/1.4131971
