Vice President Dr Bawumia
Government has disclosed that it will make Ghana a hub for refining petroleum products in the West Africa sub-region.
According to Vice President Dr Bawumia, making Ghana the petroleum hub is one of government’s strategic anchor initiatives that would serve as a new pillar of growth in the Ghanaian economy.
He made this known when he delivered the keynote address at the second edition of the Ghana International Petroleum Conference (GhIPCon) in Accra recently.
Dr Bawumia was confident the project would accelerate the growth of Ghana’s petroleum downstream sub-sector and make it a major player in the country’s economy.
This, according to him, would ensure development of a sustainable value chain.
“The Petroleum Hub project will increase the presence of major international oil trading and storage companies, create regional trading champions and encourage joint ventures between local and international companies for knowledge transfer and wealth creation. It will provide value addition in our petroleum industry.”
He said that developing a hub in Ghana would therefore require an increase in the country’s refining capacity beyond the current levels.
“It’s therefore important that our PSPs, especially the BDCs, change their business model to respond to the hub plans, as there would be more products for export than their current model of importing the shortfalls in production.”
He told the participants that “we need your industry expertise and ideas. I urge you to explore and discuss the varied ideas and strategies that would ensure the achievement of this vision of government.”
By Charles Takyi-Boadu, Presidential Correspondent