The Bulk Oil Storage and Transportation Company Limited (BOST) has reduced its $624 million trade debt to $39 million within the past four years.

Seventy-three per cent of the debt was paid from the company’s internally generated funds.

This was disclosed by the Managing Director of BOST, Mr Edwin Alfred Provencal at a press conference in Accra on Sunday, 26 September 2021.

BOST, he noted, has also succeeded in reducing the claims from Bulk Distribution Companies from $37 million to $11 million.

Touching on more success stories of the company, Mr Provencal also said pipes and other accessories that were bought in 2011 are finally en route to Ghana from Houston, USA adding that BOST has recorded an increase in revenue-earning assets from 17 per cent to 75 per cent within two years.

BOST was incorporated in December 1993 as a private limited liability company under the Companies Act,1963 (Act 179) with the Government of Ghana as the sole shareholder.

BOST has the mandate:

1. To develop a network of storage tanks, pipelines and other bulk transportation infrastructure throughout the country. 

2. To rent or lease out part of the storage facilities to enable it generate income

3. To keep Strategic Reserve Stocks for Ghana

4. To own, manage and develop a national network of oil pipelines and storage depots

5. To manage the “Zonalisation” policy of the National Petroleum Authority (NPA) and

6. To develop the Natural Gas Infrastructure throughout the country

In this regard, BOST is responsible for building strategic reserve stocks to meet a minimum of six weeks of national consumption in the short and medium-term and to increase the stock level to 12 weeks in the long term.

To adequately fulfil its mandate, BOST has developed a network of storage and pipeline infrastructure throughout the country. The Company currently has six depots nationwide located in the Accra Plains, Mami Water, Akosombo, Kumasi, Buipe and Bolgatanga. Pipelines link the Tema Oil Refinery (TOR) to the Accra Plains Depot which in turn is linked to the Mami Water Depot and ends at the Akosombo Depot.

Another pipeline links the Buipe Depot to the Bolgatanga Depot. For petroleum products to reach the northern parts of the country, it is conveyed by pipeline from the Tema Oil Refinery through the Accra Plains Depot and Mami Water to Akosombo where it is loaded onto River Barges to Buipe.

It is then conveyed to Bolgatanga by 261km-8-inch pipeline.

The Depot in Kumasi receives products by Bulk Road Vehicles (BRVs) from the Accra Plains Depot. BOST has built four barges to convey petroleum products from Akosombo to Buipe for onward transmission to Bolgatanga.

However, the Bolgatanga Depot was recently recommissioned after several years of inactivity thus making it necessary for Buipe to feed Bolgatanga by pipeline.