The Managing Director of Ghana’s Bulk Oil Storage and Transportation Company (BOST), Edwin A. Provencal says his outfit is on course in its quest to revamping the company’s pipeline infrastructure which had been offline for several years.
According to him, rehabilitation works on the Buipe-Bolga pipeline had been completed and brought online while works on Akosombo pipelines had progressed steadily.
BOST has three pipeline systems.
The first is an 18-inch multi-product pipeline used to transfer refined products (gasoline and gasoil) from ocean vessels into the Accra Plains Depot located in the South-Eastern part of Ghana.
The two other pipelines, being the 6-inch 93km Tema-Akosombo Pipeline (TAPP) System and the 8-inch 268km Buipe and Bolgatanga Pipeline (B2P3) System, are used for primary transportation to move products to BOST inland depots.
Speaking in an interview with Accra- based Asaase Radio and monitored by energynewsafrica.com, Edwin Provencal said he was hopeful that, by November this year, the pipeline would be on stream.
He noted that 60 percent of the company’s marine assets, which were in deplorable state, had also been revived.
He asserted that when the current management took office, BOST’s debt portfolio was over US$624 million.
As of now, he explained that they have been able to pay about 97 percent of the amount, while the remaining three percent had been paid through ESLA Bond.
“Can you imagine what this nation could have used $624 million for,” he rhetorised.
According to him, the company’s financial health status was so bad that he and his team had to be strategic in dealing with most of the wrongs.
He said BOST owed most banks as well as the Ghana Revenue Authority since 2014, stressing that, that action made banks to treat the company as a plague.
Sadly, Provencal said the company failed to audit its accounts since 2015 and this put pressure on his management to ensure it was done to make it financially, operationally and managerially feasible.
He said as of now, audit report of the 2015, 2016, and 2018 is almost done, while that of 2019 is almost completed.
This, he opined, now puts BOST in a better position to do more businesses with all financial institutions and investors because of its prospects now.
Operationally, he noted that the company was not at full capacity, since most of their assets were not functional at all or were working partially.
Out of the 51storage tanks it has,15 were offline.
Ghana: BOST Commences Repair Works On Buipe-Bolga Pipeline (Video +Photos)
The BOST MD further itemised many other assets of the company left to wallow lazily at the expense of ordinary Ghanaians in Bolga since 2016 and many others across the nation.
On the brighter side of the company, he mentioned that soon, they would be receiving products from Takoradi, which would dramatically improve the import cover from the current figure of two to about four weeks.
“Can you believe that since 2008, we bought some pipelines and they’ve been stuck in the US? By December, it will have arrived in Ghana. We have some debts on it and we have paid them,” he explained.
Source:www.energynewsafrica.com
