The Bulk Oil Storage and Transport Company has described as ‘unfounded’ claims by the Ghana National Petroleum Tankers Drivers Union that the state oil transport company is in a bad shape and in need of urgent intervention from the presidency.
In a press release copied to GhanaWeb, BOST appealed to the general public to disregard the content of the petition by the drivers which was directed at the president.
According to BOST, the allegations being peddled by the drivers union is without merit and must be treated with contempt.
“We will urge the public to disregard the unfounded allegations on the operations of the company and trust BOST to live up to the bidding for the Good People of Ghana.
“We further wish to encourage the media to practice responsible reportage of issues by cross-checking with our Corporate Communications and External Affairs Department to avoid misleading reports like these,” parts of the statement said.
The statement explained in detail the measures put in place by the current management of BOST to repair some hitherto faulty pipes and ensure smooth transportation of products.
“The transmission of fuel from BOST’s Primary Depot in Accra to Kumasi, Buipe, Akosombo and Bolga Depots are carried out through three modules: Road (Tankers also called BRVS), Pipeline and River Barges via the Volta Lake.
“BOST has two pipelines connecting the Tema-Akosombo and Buipe-Bolgatanga Depots. Over the past few years, the two pipelines have been down and all the four river barges on the Volta Lake were also grounded. Efficient resource utilization and focused management has resulted in a full repair of all four river barges that were grounded and the two pipelines which had been out of use for close to five years. The barges are in full utilization and the Buipe-Bolgatanga Petroleum Product Pipeline is in full use. The Tema- Akosombo Product Pipeline is expected to be in use by close of the third quarter.
“One river barge voyage from Akosombo to Buipe takes a total of about 5,300,000 liters of product. With a maximum capacity of 54,000 liters per truck (tanker or BRV as indicated earlier), one barge trip is the equivalent of (5,300,000/54,000) = 98 trucks. With the barges making close to 10 turns in a month, (98*10) = 980 truck loads are saved.
“ In the process, more volumes of product get transferred to the northern depot in Buipe which gets further pushed through the repaired pipeline to Bolgatanga to facilitate the export business into the landlocked countries and to meet the domestic demand of the northern, Upper East and West as well as the North East and Savana Regions.
“For a faster and quicker movement of volumes to meet the increasing export demand, the barge/pipeline formula is more efficient and will therefore affect the volume that get transferred through the use of the Road Trucks (BRVs or Tankers),” excerpts of the statement read.
BOST assured the public that the company is in the best of state and delivering on its core duty of transporting oil and creating revenue for the country.
“BOST is in safe hands (a solid board and management team) and things are really getting better: our asset utilization has improved from a paltry 15% to 85% (including the pipelines and barges) within two years and we are seeking to bring every single asset which has been lying idle over the last couple of years into operation to maximize value for the 30 million Ghanaians.”