Consumers of Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) in the Western and Central regions can heave a sigh of relief with the coming on board of a Ship To Bulk road vehicle transfer’ arrangement (STB).
Per the arrangement, LPG would be discharged from the ship directly into BRVs.
This is collaboration between the Ministry of Energy, National Petroleum Authority and Fuel Trade, a bulk distribution company.
After some initial hitches, the project took off with a test run from Thursday, November 1 to Saturday, November 3, 2012 with 1,200 metric tonnes.
This is anticipated to serve the western and central regions, and a consignment of 1,200metric tones will arrive in Takoradi every week to serve the Western and Central regions.
This is going to continue until government is able to put into use the two facilities at Tema that is the Redfins’ floating barge and Fuel Trade’s storage and loading gantry next year.
The success of the three day test run is an indication of the observance of all safety protocols and regimes that has been put in place for the safe operation of the ship to BRV operation.
The peculiar nature of Ghana’s LPG supply cycle is such that a disruption of two (2) days to the cycles causes shortages of five to seven days. This is the reason why even though products are being supplied to the market currently, pockets of shortage still exist in some parts of the country.
As part of remedial measures taken by the NPA to mitigate the shortage and its effects on consumers, NPA has issued licenses to private firms to resolve the LPG problem.
There are also a number of medium to long term measures underway.
Currently under construction is a 4,000mt capacity tank farm and gantry that can supply 1000mt a day in Tema by Fuel Trade. It is expected to be completed in the second quarter of 2013.
The Ghana Gas Company’s Processing Plant is also expected to come on stream by the third quarter of 2013.
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