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The Bulk Oil Storage and Transportation Company (BOST) has assured consumers of petroleum products that the 5 million litres of contaminated products sold to a private company are being closely monitored to ensure that no unscrupulous person will sell such products to drivers.

According to BOST, only 180,000 litres of the products have been lifted and delivered to WACEM in Aflao to run their broilers.

The company said trucks transporting the products have been fitted with trackers to ensure that it is not sold on the open market for unsuspecting vehicle users to buy.

Even though some have raised concern over the industry regulator’s ability to control the potential harm to unsuspecting consumers, BOST maintained that it is in close contact with its allied agencies, such as National Petroleum Authority (NPA), to foil any such moves.
“BOST’s responsibility is to sell off-spec products to a qualified company and it is important to note that, off-spec products are used by the steel, garment, petro chemical companies to run their machinery and certainly not for the running of vehicle engines.

“It can also be used as mixture for asphalt and turpentine to prevent decay of wood, etc and, therefore, we cannot fathom how possible off-spec products could be sold to unsuspecting consumers for whatever reason.

“That notwithstanding, it is a fact that NPA is fully in control as usual and will not allow this to happen.”

News about the sale of the contaminated products has sparked fears that considering the volumes, some of the products may end up in the open market which will destroy the engines of vehicles.

But, BOST defended its decision to sell off the contaminated or off-spec product to oil company, Movenpiina Energy.

The company said BOST initially agreed to sell 5 million litres of the product to the company at a cost of GH¢1 per litre.

According to the company, another buyer later offered to pay GH¢1.30 per litre.
As a result, management on first come basis informed Movenpiina Energy of the new offer which Movenpiina Energy agreed to pay and the product was offered to it.
BOST defends selling to one company
BOST stated that selling such products to one company was in the right direction to ensure effective monitoring is carried out.

According to the company, the option was the most appropriate one considering the potential loss in revenue should other options be implemented.

Option 1
“The first option is to have a corrective treatment of the off-spec product at TOR but this option was however not possible because TOR is not refining at the moment.”

Option 2
“The second option was to gradually inject a total of about seventy thousand (70,000) litres of the off-spec product into ten million litres (10,000,000) of normal product over a period which will take about ten (10) solid months for BOST to accomplish.

“The implication of this option is however the opportunity cost of losing the commercial value of over GH¢5,700,000.

“This arrangement would have deprived the bulk Oil Distributors (BDCs) of getting space to store their products. The capacity of the tank holding the off-spec product is twenty million litres.”

Option 3
“The third option involves the selling of the off-spec product at a competitive ex-depot price. Comparatively, the possible revenue loss here cannot outweigh the loss in Option 1 and 2.
“Clearly, OPTION 3 was the ideal from a business point of view,” the statement added.
BOST rejected accusations of revenue saying that could not have been true.

“BOST sold the off-spec product at GH¢1.30 per litre as against the normal ex-depot rate of GH¢1.75 for normal products.

“Thus 26 percent discount off the normal product and this is the normal and acceptable practice in the industry.

“The assertion that the off-spec product should have been sold at two GH¢2.50p is misleading because ex-depot price and pump price are completely different. BOST only sells products at ex-depot rate.”