Ghana: NPA Orders Sentuo Refinery To Compensate PUMA Energy

Ghana’s downstream petroleum regulator, the National Petroleum Authority, has directed the Chinese-owned refinery, Sentuo Refinery, to compensate Puma Energy, one of the oil marketing companies in the Republic of Ghana, after the regulator established that gasoline bought from the refinery did not fulfil the required vapour pressure.

Per the directive by the regulator, the refinery is expected to ensure that the products in question were evacuated from the retail outlet of Puma, return the products to the refinery for correction through the BDCs that marketed the product, and compensate Puma with products that are acceptable quality per quantities returned through the BDCs involved.

A source at the NPA, disclosed this to Energy News Africa via the telephone.

This comes after two energy sector think tanks– Institute for Energy Security (IES) and COPEC–raised concerns that the refinery had sold products that did not meet industry standards.

The regulator responded via a press statement and clarified that the issue had to do with the vapour pressure of the gasoline from the refinery and not all their products as reported.

The statement mentioned that a sanction had been imposed on the refinery without giving details on the level of the said sanction.

However that did not meet the expectations of the two thinks–IES and COPEC–who issued a joint statement to demand disclosure about the level of sanction imposed on the refinery.

“NPA, in insisting Sentuo Refinery has acquired all due licences to enable it to put products onto the Ghanaian market, is also entreated to publish both the Commercial Licences so granted and the Quality Assurance Certificate on the petroleum consignment in question, for the sake of transparency, and dispelling industry and consumer fears that the refinery is in a hurry to side step some regulatory protocols meant to ensure no rules of safety are bent using apparent arm twisting as we currently seeing.

“The NPA must be made aware of the fact that any such sanctions on the Chinese refinery must factor due and appropriate compensations to both AOMCs and its members affected by the bad fuel and its attendant challenges on their facilities as well as the consumers who patronised these products and are currently grappling with one issue or the other on their engines,” IES and COPEC said in their statement.

The refinery, last week, admitted that its premium spirit, popularly known as petrol, did not meet the required standard and took corrective measures to address the issue.

Albert Duncan, a consultant with the refinery, told energynewsafrica.com that they realised that there was a problem with the vapour pressure of the PMS and they took corrective measures to address the issue.

“As we speak, we are selling. It’s only the petrol that had a problem and we have taken steps to correct it,” Mr Duncan said via the telephone.

Source: https://energynewsafrica.com