The Chamber of Petroleum Consumers of Ghana (COPEC) has described as untenable government’s decision to allow the Tema Oil Refinery (TOR) to refine diesel with 500ppm level while Bulk Oil Distributing Companies are made to import the commodity with 10 ppm.
The chamber petitioned the President last week to pass a regulation that will compel BDCs to import diesel with 10ppm sulphur level, after Swiss NGO, Eagle Eye in conjunction with the African Center for Energy Policy(ACEP) published that African countries including Ghana consume dirty fuel.
The National Petroleum Authority(NPA) on Monday announced that government has directed the sulphur level to be reduced from 3,000ppm while BDCs import diesel with 10ppm sulphur level.
Speaking to Citi Business News, the Executive Secretary of COPEC, Duncan Amoah stated that the explanation is a weak since fuel from TOR f will also be consumed by Ghanaians.
“It is a very weak argument and it is more or less a compromising position that says indeed the high sulphur is bad, the 500ppm itself is also bad but as it stands because we have not been able to do the right investment in our refinery let the refinery continue to work to provide the high bad toxic fuel to the rest of the people while the BDCs are made to bring much cleaner products,” he said.
According to him, the country cannot have different standards for different institutions since it will be discriminatory.
He questioned the rationale behind the reduction if high sulphur fuel will be allowed on the Ghanaian market just keep TOR in operations.
“What happens to these products when they end up co-mingling in ones tank. The issue of the TOR is not tangible,” he said.
He pointed out that as at now the TOR laboratory is currently the only petrochemical laboratory in the country that ascertain most of the standards hence the same refinery cannot be made to check sulphur content of the imported products.
He therefore called for an independent laboratory to check all sulphur levels in the country including oil refined by the TOR.
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By: Lawrence Segbefia/citibusinessnews.com/Ghana