NPA begins process to review act

The National Petroleum Authority (NPA) has started the process of reviewing the NPA Act, 2005 (Act 691) for it to meet current demands and expectations of the petroleum downstream industry.

The Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the NPA, Dr Mustapha Abdul-Hamid, who announced this, explained that the current act fell short of certain provisions to ensure that the industry remained efficient, profitable and fair and met the satisfaction of consumers.

He said the review would also correct certain limitations of the law to ensure highest safety standards in the downstream petroleum sector.

Dr Abdul-Hamid was speaking to journalists in Sunyani as part of a working tour of the Bono Region.

The visit also paved the way for him to access first-hand information on activities, facilities and infrastructure in the sector.

It formed part of his five-day familiarisation tour of five regions — Bono, Ashanti, Northern, Upper East and Upper West.

As part of the visits, Dr Abdul-Hamid will pay courtesy calls on the regional ministers, the regional police commands and traditional councils to solicit their support towards the success of the NPA.

Established in 2005, the NPA is responsible for regulating, monitoring and overseeing the downstream petroleum industry, covering importation, storage and distribution of Ghana’s entire petroleum value chain.

Process

The CEO said the memorandum accompanying the draft bill had been submitted to the Ministry of Energy for review and comments before its transmission to the Cabinet for approval to be forwarded to Parliament.

Dr Abdul-Hamid said rapid changes in the petroleum sector had necessitated and demanded amendments in some of the provisions in Act 691 to prevent fuel adulteration and ensure high quality products and services.

He said the authority had, since its establishment, made incremental progress in perfecting the regulatory regime and frameworks to ‘police’ the industry to meet international best practices and standards.

He vowed to impose fines on or revoke the licences of oil marketing companies and owners of tankers found tampering with their fuel.

“Just this afternoon, the Managing Director of the Bulk Oil Storage and Transportation (BOST) sent me a tall list of tankers that have been caught tampering with their logs in the last 24 hours,” he said.

Dr Abdul-Hamid said the NPA would investigate and apply the requisite sanctions, where necessary, to ensure sanity in the industry.

He said the NPA had put in place measures to check adulterated fuel and other illegal activities in the petroleum industry.

Cylinder recirculation

Speaking to journalists in Kumasi, the CEO announced that the cylinder recirculation model (CRM) would be rolled out nationwide by the third quarter of the year.

He said the pilot project, which was run in six districts in the country, had been quite successful, except for a few challenges.

He said the challenges encountered were what had delayed the rollout of the model.

Challenges

The challenges, Dr Abdul-Hamid said, included inadequate cylinders in the system and the unavailability of bottling plants in the system for effective rollout of the model

He explained that for the effective rollout of the programme, there would be the need to have at least twice the number of cylinders currently in the country.

Under the CRM, gas filling stations will phase out and be replaced by gas distribution points where people will only send their empty cylinders to pick already filled ones.

This will be a departure from the current practice where people send their empty cylinders to be refilled.

The model was introduced as part of efforts to reduce incidents of gas explosions, particularly in residential areas.