Ghana gets first parking for oil tankers in West Africa

Company News of Thursday, May 2, 2019

Source: starrfm.com.gh

2019-05-02

Tank truck drivers who have trouble finding adequate parking spaces for transporting petroleum products from the refinery and storage areas can now breathe a sigh of relief.

The National Petroleum Authority (NPA) has ordered a state-of-the-art parking lot for bulk road vehicles in Kpone, Accra.

The facility can accommodate at least a thousand tankers out of the 3,000 operating in the oil sector.

NPA CEO Hbadan Tampuli said the facility would improve public safety and standards in the transportation of petroleum products.

He noted that a number of accidents were due to fatigue resulting from insufficient rest after a trip, hence "the need to build a parking terminal for tank trucks to deal with all the unforeseeable accidents of accidents caused by drivers ".

"We, as industry stakeholders and operators of these tankers, are therefore responsible for providing members of the public with the badurance that we are doing everything in our power to ensure their safety." safety when we operate, "he said.

He badured the tanker drivers that the NPA would continue to create an enabling environment for the operations of the downstream petroleum industry transport section.

According to the Authority, this investment also reflects its long-term commitment to reducing the safety risk posed by the blind parking of tank trucks along the road to the Tema Oil Refinery (TOR) and to the other deposits in Tema.

The Minister of Energy, Mr. John Peter Amewu, in a speech read on his behalf by the Director General of TOR, Mr. Isaac Ossei at the inauguration of the terminal, said: "the parking lot of tank cars, sometimes loaded with petroleum products, along these roads pose a serious risk to the health and safety of people and property, so I congratulate the National Petroleum Authority for this commendable project. "

He added that the facility would ensure the efficiency of the distribution of petroleum products in the country.

Urging the government to support the development of the downstream petroleum sector, he said the government would guarantee the steady supply of petroleum products in all parts of the country "through a cost effective and efficient distribution system ".

The energy minister said that the rehabilitation problems of the Tema pipelines at Akosombo, as well as the possibility of a railway line between Tema and Kumasi, were all aimed at reducing road transport of petroleum products.