Board members of the Bulk Oil Storage and Transportation (BOST) will on Monday meet to take a decision on the latest allegation of ‘shady deal’ levelled against the company.
The Chamber of Petroleum Consumers (COPEC) Ghana claimed in a statement Sunday that BOST had short-changed the state of about GHC23 million by selling off some 1.8 trillion barrels of crude to an unlincenced company in September 2017.
The crude, which had been in the tanks of the Tema Oil Refinery since December 2016, according to COPEC, was sold to BB Energy at 54 dollars per barrel as against the prevailing price of 56 dollars at the time of the sale.
COPEC alleged the crude was “on a rebound and had peeked from around the $50/barrel region to all the way above $70 as of January [2018]”.
It thus appealed to the appropriate state agencies to institute forensic investigations into the matter, which it claimed had caused financial loss to the state
But when contacted, a source at BOST denied the allegation by COPEC, and described same as “unfortunate and misleading”, adding “the Board is meeting tomorrow to take a decision on that”.
READ: COPEC boss claims BOST MD wants him “killed in 3 days”
The source explained that the product was imported to be refined but that did not materialise, hence reselling it about 10 months later “cannot be sold at official rice”.
“Such a product is considered distress and is always sold at a discount globally,” the source explained, adding that any competent industry player would have asked for details before making such “illogical and baseless statement”.According to the source, keeping crude oil for such a period may affect the quality “and for that matter the yield”, something that it said forms part of the determination of the pricing of the product.
“Everyday BOST’s management is having crisis meeting because of these false and misleading publications thereby preventing us from concentrating on our core mandate,” the source bemoaned.
Join GhanaStar.com to receive daily email alerts of breaking news in Ghana. GhanaStar.com is your source for all Ghana News. Get the latest Ghana news, breaking news, sports, politics, entertainment and more about Ghana, Africa and beyond.
