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We have taken notice of a publication with the above caption in the Goldstreet Business newspaper published on Friday, January 10, 2020 and we wish to clarify a few issues therein as follows:

• In the fourth paragraph on the second page of the paper, the writer alleges that BOST admits to losing $2 Million per month to transmission losses. We wish to state that, fuel distribution/transmission across the country is not done at the cost of BOST and the company cannot be said to be losing anything to transmission. The claim is unfounded and couldn’t have come from BOST.
• The distribution of petroleum products across the country is a two-stage process: primary and secondary distribution. Both stages are funded fully by specific taxes in the petroleum price build-up which is collected by the Ghana Revenue Authority, GRA, and paid through the National Petroleum Authority, NPA, the regulator of the petroleum downstream. Transport service providers present their bills with supporting documents to BOST and the claims are made on the fund at NPA. The funds received are then paid to the transporters less the value of any shortages recorded in the values they successfully deliver at the various BOST Depots.
• Primary distribution/transmission is the movement of product from the BOST receiving depot to other BOST depots across the country. This is funded by the Primary Distribution Margin, PDM.
• Secondary distribution/transmission is when products are loaded from BOST depots and discharged at various Oil Marketing Company, OMC, sales points across the country. This is funded by the Uniform Petroleum Price Fund, UPPF.
• This means, the petroleum product consumer who pays for products consumed pays for the cost of transmission in the process. BOST does not pay for product transmission across the country.

We would like to assure the general public that all efforts are being made to ensure that petroleum products are made available across the country at reasonable prices at all times.

Meanwhile the threat of product contamination as the paper rightly stated is fully eliminated and in the event it occurs, the company is limited to blending, re-refining or competitive tendering for the disposal of such products. In addition to these, any officials found culpable of any such development as the Managing

Director rightly stated will be surcharged with the full value of the product concerned less any value realized from the listed processes.

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