Gold-for-Oil: Second consignment of 40,000MT of diesel, 35,000MT of petrol received

Gold-to-Oil: Second consignment of 40,000MT diesel, 35,000MT petrol received

Ghana has received the second shipment of Petroleum products under the Gold-for-Oil Program.

Ghana received 40,000MT of diesel and 35,000MT of petrol at a cost of 40 million Dollars which has just arrived and was disposed of, the Chief Executive of the National Petroleum Authority (NPA) Dr Mustapha Abdul-Hamid has said.

He indicated that in consultation with the Association of Oil Marketing Companies (AOMC), it has been decided that only the Oil Marketing Company (OMC) with 45 retail outlets will receive the product.

This is to ensure that the impact of the G4O program is felt by consumers throughout the country, he said.

“In this second shipment of gold for oil products that have arrived, we will sell only to OMCs that are not less than 45 outlets because there are 150 OMCs, if you sell pieces to all 150 OMCs you will not know the impact. but if you sell to people with the largest number of outlets, so the impact will be felt across the country in terms of the drop in prices,” he said at a press conference in Accra on Wednesday, February 22.

Ghana took its first shipment of 40,000 metric tons of oil at the port of Tema on Sunday, January 15, 2023.

The gold for oil initiative is the government’s attempt to move away from the US dollar for international transactions.

Vice President Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia who announced the move said at the 2022 Association of Ghana Industries (AGI) Awards in Accra, that the program will give Ghana room to accumulate more international reserves because the country will save $3 billion spent on oil. import.

Furthermore, the use of gold is mainly for oil imports under the reduced foreign exchange reserves.

Dr Bawumia noted that the main source of Cedi depreciation is the demand for forex to finance the importation of oil products and to overcome this challenge, the government is negotiating a new policy regime where sustainably mined gold will be used to buy oil products.

“We are implementing the gold-for-oil policy as envisioned, it will fundamentally change the balance of payments and reduce the continuous depreciation of the currency with the increase in the price of fuel, electricity, water, transport and food.”

This, he said, is because the exchange rate will not directly enter the formula for determining the price of fuel or utilities because all domestic fuel sellers no longer need foreign exchange to import oil products.

By Laud Nartey|3news.com|Ghana

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