Fire Outbreak ar BOST Buipe Depot Truck Park

There was an incident of fire at the truck park of the Buipe Depot of the Bulk Oil Storage and Transportation Company Limited, BOST in the late hours of Friday, January 3, 2020.

The Buipe depot is the central fuel holding point of BOST serving the Savana, Northern, North-East, Upper East and Upper West regions of Ghana. It receives products through river barges (via the Volta Lake) and through Bulk Road Vehicles, BRVs loaded from the Accra Plains depot of BOST.

To put an end to the speculation in the media space, we wish to state the facts of the incident as follows:

1. The fire occurred at the truck park of the depot and not within the depot.
2. It started around 6:15 pm in the evening and took a combined force of the depot technical staff and fire officers from the Damongo and Tamale Fire Stations to bring it under control around 10 p.m.
3. Four BRVs, two of which were loaded with petroleum products were severely burnt.
4. The two trucks contained 36,000 liters of diesel (AGO) and 36,000 liters of petrol (PMS) respectively. The diesel (AGO) is intact though the truck is burnt.
5. At the current price of GHS5.41/liter, the value of the product lost is estimated at GHS194,760.00.
6. The affected BRVs belonged to Ghana Oil Company Limited, GOIL (3) and BF Energy (1).
7. All BRVs registered and certified to haul products to and from BOST depots are comprehensively insured.
8. All depots of BOST are insured in full due to the nature of the products the company stores and transports.
9. In line with our Standard Operating Procedures, (SOPs), trucks loaded with products for distribution to OMCs are not supposed to park within the premises of the depot.
10. The exact cause of the fire has not been ascertained as at now and investigations are underway. We shall furnish the pubic with the details once the technical team completes the investigations.
11. Though a sizable volume of products loaded for OMCs, were destroyed in the incident, product supply in the northern regions and the general operations of BOST as a company will not be negatively affected.
12. We wish to assure the general public that, our strategic fuel stocks for the northern regions and Ghana as a whole are intact.

Adjei Marlick Head, Corporate Communications and External Affairs