Dr. Mustapha Abdul-Hamid
The government sent $40 million on its first batch of imported oil under the Gold-for-oil policy.
The National Petroleum Authority (NPA) which revealed this in statement said the amount was for the purchase of the 40,000 tonnes of diesel that arrived in January, 2023.
The clarification by the NPA comes after several calls by industry experts including the Institute of Energy Securities for the government to provide details on how much it spent on the initial consignment.
It explained that the prime objective of the programme is to use additional foreign exchange resources from the Bank of Ghana’s Domestic Gold Purchase (DGP) programme to provide foreign currency for the importation of petroleum products for the country which currently stands at about US$350 million per month.
“The first consignment of 40,000 metric tonnes of diesel constitutes about 10 percent of the country’s combined monthly demand for petrol and diesel. The plan is to gradually increase imports under G4O to constitute about 50 percent of the country’s total demand for petrol and diesel by March 2023,” the Authority said in a release.
To ensure that the price of petroleum products imported under the G4O programme reflects at the pumps to benefit the consumer, the National Petroleum Authority (NPA) said it will regulate the prices of the products in the interim until the volumes increase significantly.
“NPA will work with Bulk Oil Storage and Transportation Company Limited (BOST) to negotiate prices with international oil traders to ensure that the landed cost of products procured under the programme are always competitive.
The price at which BOST will sell the products to Bulk Import, Distribution, and Export Companies (BIDECs) will be approved by the NPA. The price at which the BIDECs will sell the products to Oil Marketing Companies (OMCs) will also be approved by the NPA,” it added.
Also, “BIDECs and OMCs who lift and supply G4O products will sell at the ex-refinery and ex-pump prices that will be determined by the NPA. If there must be a comingling of products supplied under G4O and other sources, the ex-refinery and ex-pump prices will be computed using a weighted average.”
It further stated that the applicable exchange rate for pricing the products supplied under G4O will be based on the average rate at which the gold was purchased from the licensed gold exporters by BoG. The BoG ordinarily purchases the gold aggregated by the Precious Minerals Marketing Company (PMMC).
By Jamila Akweley Okertchiri