The committee set up by the National Petroleum Authority (NPA) to review the fuel price deregulation policy introduced in July 2015 has urged the government to reconsider the continued existence of a BOST Margin in the Price Build-Up (PBU) of petroleum products.
According to the committee, circumstances that necessitated the need to introduce the Bulk Oil Storage and Transportation (BOST) Margin have completely changed from what pertains today.
Mr. Abass Ibrahim Tasunti, Head of Economic Regulation at the NPA who presented the report on behalf of the committee to industry players at the NPA Head Office in Accra recommended that the BOST Margin should be replaced with a Petroleum Downstream Infrastructure Levy.
This, the committee says, would also assist in raising funds from the PBU to support the infrastructure backbone of the petroleum downstream industry and transparency in the use of the funds.
The Committee also recommended a scrap of the LPG Filling Plant Margin in the PBU, adding that, “its existence in the PBU is no longer relevant because pricing of LPG has been deregulated and Marketers are responsible for setting both the Marketers and Dealers Margins independently.
“As a result, this margin should be subsumed into the integrated distribution margin” Mr. Tasunti added.
The committee was chaired by Mrs. Alpha Welbeck (Director of Economic Regulation and Planning at NPA). Other members were Jacob Amuah (Director of UPPF at NPA), Abass I. Tasunti; Head of Economic Regulation at NPA), Kwaku Agyemang-Duah (Industry Coordinator for Association of Oil Marketing Companies), Reindolf Domey (AOMC Technical Committee Member), Gabriel Kumi (Vice Chairman for the Association of LPG Marketing Companies), Hashford MacAnthony ( Member of the Association of LPGMCs), Senyo Hosi (the then Chief Executive of Chamber of Bulk Oil Distributors), Ivy Apea Owusu (Board Chairman of CBOD), Isaac Kofi Ampofo (Assistant Engineer at the Ministry of Energy), Fiona Frances Adjei Fordjour Oppong (Legal Counsel Member of the Ministry of Energy), and Amanda Okyere Boakye (Economic Regulation Officer at NPA) who acted as the secretary to the committee.
