The Minority group in Ghana’s Parliament has expressed concern about the persistent power outages, particularly during peak hours in the West African nation.
A statement issued by John Abdulai Jinapor MP and a Ranking Member on Mines and Energy Committee in Parliament noted that while most Ghanaians have been witnessing intermittent power outages, others have been experiencing low currents and occasional high voltage, leading to damages to their electrical gadgets and equipment in some cases.
“It is a well-known fact especially, amongst energy sector players that the current outages the country is experiencing are due to gas shortages coupled with serious challenges with the procurement of alternative fuels due to the precarious financial state of the energy sector SOEs.
“Most of the energy sector SOEs have continued to witness worsening financial positions since the assumption of office of President Akufo-Addo and Dr Bawumia, despite their administration receiving over 20 billion cedis in ESLA revenues and about 40 billion cedis in petroleum revenues,” he stated.
According to the former Deputy Minister for Power, more disturbing is the deliberate decision by the government’s communicators and energy sector SOEs to keep mute whilst the ordinary Ghanaian is made to experience this avoidable state of load shedding.”
He, therefore, called on the government and responsible government agencies to come clean on the current state of power outages as a matter of urgency and provide a schedule if need be to enable the ordinary consumer and industry to plan and avoid damages to their electrical equipment.
Source: https://energynewsafrica.com
A Female Engineer with Ghana Grid Company (GRIDCo), Ing. Abigail Acheampomaa Opoku, has been elected as the Financial Leader for the Youth in Engineering (YiE) of the Ghana Institution of Engineering (GhIE).
She is also a member of the Professional Practice and Ethics Committee of the Ghana Institution of Engineering.
Ing. Abigail Opoku started her career at GRIDCo’s Power System Planning Section of the Engineering Department in June 2022.
She has a strong background in Project Management and has worked on some high profile projects such as the Kasoa Bulk Supply Point, which has contributed to the improvement of power supply in Ghana.
As a Finance Leader for the Youth in Energy Branch of the GhiE, she will work with the industry to secure funding for youth engineering activities and work with corporates to secure investment support for youth engineering events.
Ing Opoku is passionate about mentorship and youth development.
She strongly believes in the power of education and regularly volunteers her time to mentor and coach young people in her community.
She is particularly interested in encouraging more young women to pursue careers in STEM fields.
Abigail is a true asset to GRIDCo and an inspiration to young people in her community.
She holds a Bachelor in Electrical and Electronics Engineering and a Master’s Degree in Engineering Management, both from the University of Mines and Technology (UMaT).
Source: https://energynewsafrica.com
The Bulk Oil Storage and Transportation Company Limited (BOST) has been adjudged as the best ‘Business Leader in Bulk Oil Storage and Distribution at the Ghana Business League Awards held over the weekend in Accra, the capital of Ghana.
BOST is a state entity responsible for keeping strategic reserves of petroleum products.
The award is yet again a recognition of the company’s sterling performance over the last couple of years, particularly in the last two years.
In a post on Facebook sighted by energynewsafrica.com, the company said the Board Chairman, Mr. Ekow Hackman, and the Managing Director, Mr. Edwin Provençal, led a team from the company to receive the prestigious award on behalf of the shareholders and management.
The Ghana Business League Awards (GBLA) is a body that ranks business organisations with the prime purpose of acknowledging and further projecting top-ranked businesses in Ghana.
The award scheme provides a platform for leading businesses to showcase their achievements, innovations and impact on society.
Source: https://energynewsafrica.com
India’s government this week slashed the windfall tax on domestically-produced crude oil to zero, effective May 16, according to a government notification cited by Reuters.
In July last year, India slapped a windfall tax on the country’s oil producers and oil refiners who were exporting more due to the high international price of crude oil and refined products. The new taxes were aimed to serve as an incentive to keep more product at home and export less.
“As exports are becoming highly remunerative, it has been seen that certain refiners are drying out their pumps in the domestic market,” a government-issued statement said at the time.
India reviewed tax rates on crude oil and fuels every two weeks, based on the average oil prices in the past two weeks.
In the latest windfall tax change this week, the government left the windfall tax on gasoline, diesel, and aviation turbine fuel (ATF) unchanged at zero.
Meanwhile, fuel demand in India eased in April compared to the highs seen in February and March.
India’s fuel demand jumped by 5% in March compared to a year earlier, as the world’s third-largest crude oil importer continued to see consumption growing.
In February, Indian fuel demand was estimated to have jumped to the highest level in at least 24 years, and refiners in India raised crude throughput by 2% in February compared to January.
In April, fuel consumption fell by 10% from March, but sales of diesel – the most widely used fuel in India and the engine of economic growth – jumped to the highest level in government data going back to 1998.
Fuel consumption in India is expected to rise by 4.7% in the fiscal year between April 2023 and March 2024, estimates by the Indian Ministry of Petroleum and natural gas showed earlier this year.
India’s gasoline demand is forecast to increase by 7.1% over the next fiscal year, while gasoil demand is expected to rise by 4.2%, according to the projections.
The Acting Group Chief Executive Officer of Eskom, South Africa’s power utility, Calib Cassim says the company’s executive management has agreed to do their best to minimise the impact of load shedding this winter by making sure that there is the availability of power.
“We hope to recover 6000MW in our fleet in the next two years,” Cassim said.
Speaking during the opening session of the Enlit Africa conference and expo in Cape Town on Tuesday morning, Cassim admitted that the utility was “starting the winter on the back foot, minus 3000MW. A year ago, we had three units of Kusile working, which we don’t have, and two units of Koeberg are also not available this year.”
Following the launch of the tell-all book by the former Eskom CEO, Andre de Ruyter, at the weekend, Cassim was asked how the campaign against corruption in a large organisation such as Eskom was progressing.
He replied that there were certain areas where more corruption took place and that are where the focus is.
“Also, the number of items that have been raised on our whistle-blowing platforms is increasing and we see that as a positive indicator,” he added.
He said, however, that there was still a lack of conviction of those that are charged and that this was needed to set an example to instill confidence in Eskom.
“What is positive is the support we have been getting from the security cluster in the last year with almost 300 arrests made,” he said.
Alderman James Vos, the City of Cape Town Mayco member for economic development, said a survey amongst business owners has revealed that 66 per cent of them have had to cut jobs because of load-shedding.
“With the national power supply that is still dominated by coal, it is clear that an urgent shift in policy is necessary. An important and hopeful part of this is that it is also doable, and I know this because here, in the city of Cape Town, we are doing it.
“At the moment, this city can protect its customers from up to two stages of load-shedding. Thanks to our maintenance and our investment in the Steenbras Hydro Pumped Storage Scheme.
“Phase 1 of our tender for 200MW of renewable energy from independent power producers is also at an advanced stage with contracts for this phase on track for final awarding this year.
“We also launched our biggest power tender yet, a 500MW dispatchable energy tender. It is part of our plan to protect our residents from the first four stages of load shedding within three years.”
James Mackay, CEO of the Energy Council of SA, addressed a major theme of this year’s Enlit Africa event, namely Africa’s just energy transition in the face of the net-zero targets.
He pointed out that global clean technology investment overtook financing of fossil fuel projects for the first time in 2022.
“We have to ask, who will provide the investment for a just energy transition (in Africa) and how do we address the triple challenge (of energy security, affordability and sustainability)? When doing that, addressing socio-economic challenges must be front and centre.
“South Africa will decarbonise and we will transition,” Mackay stated.
He warned, however, that being a late adopter of clean technology would further entrench the country’s problems.
“If we can’t be agile enough to recognise the economic opportunities in clean technology, we will be excluded from global markets,” he said.
Vuyelwa Mahanyele, GE Vernova’s regional sales director for gas, sees a fourth dimension to the energy trilemma (finding a balance between security, affordability and sustainability), namely the need to develop large infrastructure projects and the need for jobs and skills to create the energy required to lead the continent’s economic development.
“Decarbonisation is not as straightforward as we want it to be. It’s not just renewable energy and batteries, which are critical.”
She stated that both renewable energy sources and carbon-emitting sources have a role play.
“Without planning to incorporate both of these into our system, we won’t achieve energy security.
“This is an incredibly exciting time to be at the heart of it all for Africa,” said David Ashdown, the CEO of VUKA Group, the organisers of Enlit Africa.
“For the energy industry of Africa, this is our Kodak moment, the Uber experience. Africa must embrace the future and the changes needed.”
International pavilions at Enlit Africa this year include Brazil, USA, Canada, Germany, Belgium, Egypt, China and Italy.
Meanwhile, the STS Association is using the event to remind all municipalities and utilities about the approaching worldwide TID rollover in pre-payment meters on 24th November 2024. Any tokens generated after this date and utilising the 24-bit TID would be rejected by the meters as being old tokens as the TID value embedded in the token will have reset back to zero.
To overcome this problem, all meters would require key change tokens with the rollover bit set.
“We urge every municipality and utility to get rolling, the time is now,” said Franco Pucci of the STS Association.
Source: https://energynewsafrica.com
The Public Utilities Regulatory Commission (PURC), the economic regulator for electricity and water in the Republic of Ghana has announced an increase in electricity tariffs by 18.36 percent across board for all consumer groups.
A statement issued by the PURC on Wednesday, May 17, 2023, and signed by Dr Ishmael Ackah, Executive Secretary of the Commission said the decision follows a review of gas and electricity tariffs.
According to the Commission, the review has become necessary to maintain the real value of cost of supply of the utility services and to ensure that the utility companies do not under- or over-recover costs. While under recovery has negative implications for the ability of the companies to supply service to consumers, and has the potential of causing outages of electricity over-recovery unnecessarily overburdens consumers of electricity.
It said the Quarterly Tariff Review mechanism is meant to address the above.
The Commission noted that key variables underlying the rate setting have changed since the announcement of first quarter tariff decision in January this year.
“The weighted average Ghana Cedi/US Dollar exchange rate used for the first quarter tariff review was GHC10.5421 to the US Dollar. Since then, the Ghana Cedi has depreciated against the US Dollar.
“The first quarter tariff decision resulted in a 25% under-recovery of the exchange rate. This has to be recovered in order to ensure that the country does not add to the already mounting debt in the energy sector.
“The projected exchange rate for the second quarter plus the first quarter under-recovery is GHC12.7118 to the US Dollar.
“The Weighted Average Cost of Gas (WACOG) used for the first quarter of 2023 was USD6.0952/MMBtu. For the second quarter, as a result of an increase in price of Nigeria-Gas (N-Gas) and other factors, the applicable WACOG is USD6.5165/MMBtu.
With respect to electricity generation mix, the hydro-thermal mix used for the second quarter is 29.01% for hydro and 70.99% for thermal, as against 26.11% for hydro and 73.89% for thermal used for first quarter of 2023. Hydro allocation of 29.01% helped to reduce the impact of changes in the macroeconomic variables and the WACOG on the tariff.
“The net effect of the Ghana Cedi/US Dollar exchange rate, inflation, WACOG and electricity generation mix is that the utility companies are under-recovering and require an upward adjustment of their rates in order to keep the lights on,’’ the Commission said.
The Commission said it mindful of the current economic circumstances, but notes that the potential for outages (dumsor) is high and this could have strong adverse impact on citizens and businesses.
“This has to be avoided,” it said.
“The Commission therefore decided, after extensive deliberations and analysis, to increase the average end-user tarrif for electricity by 18.36 percent across board for all consumer groups,” the PURC statement said.
Source: https://energynewsafrica.com
Petrosol Ghana Limited, one of the indigenous Ghanaian Oil Marketing Companies (OMC), has announced reductions in both gasoline and gasoil prices across its service stations.
According to a release on Tuesday, both petrol and diesel now sell at Gh¢11.99 per litre at their pumps.
During the first pricing window which ended on Monday, May 15, 2023, Petrosol sold petrol at Gh¢12.28 and diesel at Gh¢12.32 per litre.
This means that petrol price dropped by 29 pesewas while diesel saw a drop of 33 pesewas.
The reductions follow the fall in prices of crude oil and refined products on the international market.
Fuel prices would have dropped significantly in Ghana but for the increases in Unified Petroleum Price Fund (UPPF) and Fuel Marking Margin.
The petroleum downstream regulator, National Petroleum Authority, on Tuesday, increased the Margins of the Unified Petroleum Price Fund (UPPF) and Fuel Marking Margin.
UPPF saw an increment of between 29 and 28 pesewas for all petroleum products while Fuel Marking Margin was increased by 5 pesewas.
Source: https://energynewsafrica.com
The National Petroleum Authority, the downstream petroleum regulator, has made an upward adjustment of Unified Petroleum Price Fund (UPPF) and Fuel Marking Margins in the petroleum price build up effective today May 16, 2023.
Per the review, UPPF has gone up between 29 and 28 Pesewas from between 47 and 40 Pesewas per litre/kilogramme for petrol, diesel, kerosene/Mines, LPG, Marine Gas Oil(local), premix fuel MGO (foreign), Gasoil Mines and Gasoline Rig while Fuel Marking Margin went up to 9 Pesewas from 4 Pesewas per litre/kilogramme.
In a release signed by Curtis Perry Kwabla Okudzeto, Deputy CEO of NPA, and copied to industry players it explained that the upward review is necessary to ensure that the freight rates for the transportation of petroleum products to the various retail outlets in the country reflect the current economic conditions.
The National Petroleum Authority wishes to advise the industry of a review of the Unified Petroleum Price Fund (UPPF) and Fuel Marking Margins in the Price Build- Up effective 16th May, 2023.
“Kindly note that the upward review of the UPPF is necessary to ensure that, the freight rates for transportation of petroleum products to the various retail outlets in the country reflect the economic conditions while that of the Fuel Marking Margins is necessary to guarantee the quality of fuel consumed in the country as well as ensure the sustainability of the programme,” parts of the release said.
Source: https://energynewsafrica.com
Venezuela plans to issue a license next month to Italy’s Eni SpA and Spain’s Repsol SA to export natural gas, said Pedro Tellechea, the nation’s oil minister and head of state-run Petroleos de Venezuela SA.
The country already signed an agreement with the European energy giants on May 5 that allows for the export of natural gas liquids—or condensates—to other markets.
It was the first step toward enabling Venezuela to become a natural gas exporting country after over 100 years of focusing on oil.
“In the next few days we will finish negotiating the LNG export license,” Tellechea said in an interview Friday from PDVSA’s offices in Caracas.
“Eni and Repsol are interested in growing in the area of gas in Venezuela. They had been waiting for seven years for the export permit for natural gas liquids, which we have just granted.”
The start date for exports will “depend on the speed of the investment they will disburse,” he said.
The two European companies want to resume their jointly run Cardon IV project “at its maximum capacity,” which is 1.3 Bcf, Tellechea said. It currently pumps 580 MMcf of natural gas to meet Venezuela’s household and industrial demand.
Tellechea, a military officer and engineer, was appointed as minister of Venezuela’s oil industry in March, following a sweeping anti-corruption investigation into billions of missing revenue and faulty contracts that saw the ouster of his predecessor, Tareck El Aissami, a close ally of President Nicolas Maduro.
Previously, Tellechea led PDVSA’s petrochemical affiliate. He became the parent company’s president in early January, replacing former president Hugo Chavez’s cousin, Asdrubal Chavez.
Meanwhile, the oil ministry is also working closely with China National Petroleum Corp.’s officials on a renewed conduit that would cut out middlemen and allow them to ship crude directly, Tellechea said.
A local press contact for CNPC didn’t respond to a request for comment outside of regular business hours.
CNPC, a key producer in Venezuela’s Orinoco belt, saw output from its Sinovensa joint venture nearly double to 90,000 bpd in early April, according to PDVSA data seen by Bloomberg.
Tellechea’s rise comes as Maduro seeks to increase revenue from the nation’s oil, with presidential elections taking place next year and Maduro likely running for a third six-year term. Accounting for roughly 95% of the country’s overseas revenue, the oil industry has been victim to mismanagement, plunging oil prices, corruption and sanctions that bar any U.S. companies from doing business with PDVSA without a waiver.
U.S. President Joe Biden has continued the policy, pressuring Venezuela’s political factions to negotiate and allowing a reprieve when shown signs of goodwill. Late last year, the U.S. granted Chevron Corp. a license to resume oil production in Venezuela after a deal to work on a humanitarian spending plan was negotiated in Mexico.
Since then, oil exports have soared, reaching a 16-month high of 560,000 bpd in April. Still, Maduro has struggled to reach his 1 MMbbl production goal, less than half of what Venezuela produced when he assumed power in 2013.
The clean-up of oil spills in Nigeria’s oil-producing Niger Delta could cost around $12 billion, and oil majors including Shell and Eni should be held responsible for most of the environmental pollution, a new report by a local commission showed on Tuesday.
The report by the Bayelsa State Oil & Environmental Commission said that decades of oil production has left the state of Bayelsa “in the grip of a human and environmental catastrophe of unimaginable proportions,” as carried by Bloomberg.
“The report finds failures of strategy, prevention, response and remediation by oil companies,” the commission said in the report, as quoted by Reuters.
A spokesperson for Shell’s Nigerian unit, Shell Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria Limited, told Reuters that Shell was not privy to the final report and could not comment on its findings.
Eni, for its part, attributed the oil spills in the Niger Delta to sabotage, oil theft to feed illegal refineries, and illegal exports. Still, Eni has moved to remedy all spills, a spokesperson told Reuters.
According to the report of the Bayelsa State Oil & Environmental Commission, there are “strong reasons to believe that the official statistics significantly and systematically over-state the number of leaks caused by sabotage while downplaying those attributable to other causes.”
Eni and Shell have been called out for years by human rights and environmental organizations for neglecting the clean-up of oil spills in the Niger Delta.
For example, Amnesty International said in 2018 that its researchers “have identified that at least 89 spills may have been wrongly labeled as theft or sabotage when in fact they were caused by ‘operational’ faults.”
Of these, 46 were from Shell and 43 from Eni.
Earlier this year, the Nigerian upstream watchdog said that metering errors account for around 40% of the crude oil losses in Nigeria’s production generally attributed to oil theft.
Source: Oilprice.com
Ghana’s leading indigenous Oil Marketing Company (OMC), GOIL PLC, has announced reductions in both gasoline and gasoil prices at the pumps effective, Tuesday, May 16, 2023.
According to a release by Robert Kyere, Public Relations Manager at GOIL PLC, both petrol and diesel now sell at Gh¢12.30 per litre at their pumps.
During the first pricing window which ended on Monday, May 15, 2023, GOIL sold both petrol and diesel at Gh¢12.64 per litre.
Per today’s announcement, both prices of petrol and diesel products have been reduced by 34 pesewas.
Fuel prices would have dropped significantly in Ghana but for the increases in Unified Petroleum Price Fund (UPPF) and Fuel Marking Margin.
Other oil marketing companies are likely to adjust their pump prices later today or Wednesday.
Fuel prices have been falling in the West African nation as a result of the fall in crude oil prices and refined products on the international market.
Crude oil prices have been hovering around US$75 per barrel in the last fortnight.
As of Tuesday morning, WTI was trading at $71.47 per barrel while Brent tumbled to $75.65 per barrel.
Source: https://energynewsafrica.com
Transport operators in the Republic of Ghana have announced a 10 per cent reduction in transport fares across the board effective Wednesday, May 17, 2023.
This was contained in a statement jointly signed by Mr. Godfred Abulbire, General Secretary of Ghana Private Road Transport Union (GPRTU) and Mr Emmanuel Ohene Yeboah, General Secretary of Ghana Road Transport Coordinating Council (GRTCC).
The statement explained that the reduction is to accommodate for the reductions in petroleum products observed over the period.
Fuel prices went up astronomically in November last year, with diesel selling at more than Gh¢23 per litre while petrol sold almost Gh¢18 per litre.
Interestingly, fuel prices have dropped significantly with both diesel and petrol selling at Gh¢12.64 per litre.
This is a result of fall in crude oil prices and refined products on the international market.
Prices are likely to fall further from today, Tuesday, May 16, 2023.
Meanwhile, a group calling itself APG-GH has welcomed the reduction in transport fares by transport operators.
In a statement APG-GH, thanked all stakeholders for the fare reduction and look forward to continued cooperation in ensuring affordable transportation for its members.
It encouraged passengers to ensure that the new 10% fare reduction, which affects shared taxis, intra-city (trotro), intercity (long distance buses), and haulage vehicles, is implemented appropriately.
Source: https://energynewsafrica.com
The Energy Commission, regulator of the electricity, natural gas, and renewable energy sector of Ghana, has begun engagement with stakeholders on the new standards and labeling scheme for improved biomass cookstoves.
The event which is the first of a nationwide regional awareness creation was held in Accra on Thursday, 11 May, 2023.
It was attended by selected biomass cookstoves manufacturers, distributors and retailers; representatives of the metropolitan, municipal and district assemblies in Greater Accra, and the Greater Accra Regional Coordinating Council; the World Bank; Centre for Scientific and Industrial Research’s Institute of Industrial Research (CSIR-IIR); Ghana Standards Authority (GSA); Ministry of Energy; Ministry of Environment, Science, Technology, and Innovation (MESTI); Ghana Alliance for Clean Cookstoves and Fuels (GHACCO); and the media.
In November last year, Ghana’s Parliament passed L.I 2454 Renewable Energy (Standards and Labeling) (Improved Biomass Cookstoves) Regulations, 2022 to regulate the manufacturing, importation, distribution, and sale of improved biomass cookstoves. Enforcement of the new Regulations will commence in November 2024.
The objective of the LI 2454 is to promote the efficient use of biomass resources and mitigate the impact of climate change by providing for: the enforcement of minimum performance standards for improved biomass cookstoves; labeling; and registration of improved biomass cookstoves.
The Government of Ghana, as part of its Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) under the climate change Paris Agreement seeks to disseminate 3 million improved biomass cookstoves by 2030, with the support of development partners.
So far, the Government of Ghana, through the Ministry of Energy, has distributed about 500,000 improved biomass cookstoves.
Bernice Adjoa Eshun Nortey, Officer, Renewable Energy Regulation at the Energy Commission made a presentation on improved biomass cookstoves. In her discussion on the benefits of improved biomass cookstoves, she noted that it uses less fuel, reduces exposure to harmful smoke which prevents headache, cooks food faster, lowers emissions of carbon monoxide, and particulate matter, and is safe to use.
In a presentation by Paula Edze, Manager for Renewable Energy Regulation, she walked the participants through the purpose of the LI 2454, what the law requires from improved biomass cookstoves manufacturers, importers, distributors and retailers; the offences; penalties; etc. She encouraged manufacturers of improved biomass cookstoves to ensure proper labelling of their products and also be innovative in designing the products.
Paula Edze, Manager for Renewable Energy Regulations speaking during the stakeholders engagement.
She warned that the Commission would not allow the marketing of improved biomass cookstoves that are not properly labelled.
Touching on the penalties, she said a penalty unit is Gh¢12, adding that the penalties range from 125 penalty units to 1000 penalty units; and or prison terms of six months to 24 months.
The Deputy Director responsible for bioenergy at the Ministry of Energy, Doris Duodu commended the Energy Commission for the efforts it is making to promote improved biomass cookstoves.
She pledged the Ministry’s support to the standards and labelling scheme for improved biomass cookstoves.
The Commission will be holding the same event in the Ahafo, Northern, Upper West, Volta, and Oti Regions over the next two weeks.
Source: https://energynewsafrica.com
Nigeria has completed the 700MW Zungeru Hydroelectric Power Project in Niger State and is awaiting official commissioning, the Country’s Minister for Power, Engr Abubakar D. Aliyu has revealed.
The construction of the US$1.3 billion project started in 2013.
The project is expected to boost power supply in Africa’s most populous nation.
With over 210 million population, it is worrying that less than half of the population has access to electricity.
During a visit to the Zungeru Hydroelectric Power Project site at the weekend, Engr Abubakar Aliyu noted that all the turbines have been tested and plans are being concluded for the project’s official launch.
He said the Transmission Company of Nigeria would soon connect the plant to the national grid to transmit power to the Discos.
According to him, the last time a project like Zungeru hydroelectric power project was executed by the Nigerian government was in the 1960s.
He added that the huge investment in the Zungeru power plant is part of the federal government’s commitment to improving the electricity supply across the country.
Engr Aliyu also said that the facility is one of the priority projects of President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration.
Apart from providing more power to Nigerians, the minister said the project is currently employing many Nigerians and would provide flood control, irrigation, as well as water supply.
The governor of Niger State, Abubakar Sani Bello commended President Buhari for the completion of the 700MW Zungeru Hydroelectric Power Project in the Niger State.
In a post on Facebook sighted by energynewsafrica.com, the company said the Board Chairman, Mr. Ekow Hackman, and the Managing Director, Mr. Edwin Provençal, led a team from the company to receive the prestigious award on behalf of the shareholders and management.
The Ghana Business League Awards (GBLA) is a body that ranks business organisations with the prime purpose of acknowledging and further projecting top-ranked businesses in Ghana.
The award scheme provides a platform for leading businesses to showcase their achievements, innovations and impact on society.
Source: https://energynewsafrica.com 
According to the report of the Bayelsa State Oil & Environmental Commission, there are “strong reasons to believe that the official statistics significantly and systematically over-state the number of leaks caused by sabotage while downplaying those attributable to other causes.”
Eni and Shell have been called out for years by human rights and environmental organizations for neglecting the clean-up of oil spills in the Niger Delta.
For example, Amnesty International said in 2018 that its researchers “have identified that at least 89 spills may have been wrongly labeled as theft or sabotage when in fact they were caused by ‘operational’ faults.”
Of these, 46 were from Shell and 43 from Eni.
Earlier this year, the Nigerian upstream watchdog said that metering errors account for around 40% of the crude oil losses in Nigeria’s production generally attributed to oil theft.
Source: Oilprice.com 
Fuel prices went up astronomically in November last year, with diesel selling at more than Gh¢23 per litre while petrol sold almost Gh¢18 per litre.
Interestingly, fuel prices have dropped significantly with both diesel and petrol selling at Gh¢12.64 per litre.
This is a result of fall in crude oil prices and refined products on the international market.
Prices are likely to fall further from today, Tuesday, May 16, 2023.
Meanwhile, a group calling itself APG-GH has welcomed the reduction in transport fares by transport operators.
In a statement APG-GH, thanked all stakeholders for the fare reduction and look forward to continued cooperation in ensuring affordable transportation for its members.
It encouraged passengers to ensure that the new 10% fare reduction, which affects shared taxis, intra-city (trotro), intercity (long distance buses), and haulage vehicles, is implemented appropriately.
Source: https://energynewsafrica.com 
