BOST serves as a national strategic asset – Provencal

The Bulk Oil Storage and Transportation Company Limited (BOST) has been categorised as a national strategic asset that must be defended and guarded at all times to serve its purposes, Mr. Edwin Provencal, the Managing Director has stated.

He said for a state institution to perform creditably, it needs periodic constructive feedback from strategic stakeholders, “not vilification, sabotage and undermining every policy move, such acts drain the energies of management and staff.”

Mr. Provencal stated during the end-of-year assessment stakeholder engagement with the media which was used to outline the company’s achievement for 2021 and plans for 2022.

The BOST MD noted that “I belong to the school of thought that, Government companies and institutions must be run efficiently and professionally. If Government institutions are managed well, the private sector will gallop.

“As the private sector depends largely on the strategic assets and foundations of the government institutions. Private sector actors need the state institution to survive. State institutions are not in competition with the private sector, but serve as an enhancer for the private to thrive”.

Mr. Provencal noted that BOST as a strategic institution had the mandate to develop a network of storage tanks, pipelines, and other bulk transportation infrastructure throughout the country.

It also rented or leased out part of the storage facilities to enable it generate income, keep Strategic Reserve Stocks for Ghana, to own, manage and develop a national network of oil pipelines and storage depots as well as to manage the “Zonalisation” policy of the National Petroleum Authority (NPA).

He said BOST’s mandate also focused on the development of the Natural Gas Infrastructure throughout the country.

"In this regard, BOST is responsible for building strategic reserve stocks to meet a minimum of six weeks of national consumption in the short and medium-term and to increase the stock level to 12 weeks in the long term."

Mr. Provencal said to adequately fulfill its mandate, BOST had developed a network of storage and pipeline infrastructure throughout the country and now had six Depots nationwide.

He said, “Our core mandate is to keep the national strategic petroleum reserves and transport petroleum products from one depot to another throughout the country, a task we at BOST consider as a highly critical and hence must be treated just as national security operations”.

He said BOST had been transformed dramatically, enhanced its working culture, and developed innovative and inexpensive methods for transporting petroleum products in a way that lives and property were kept free from danger.

“While at that, we have not reneged on what we have always stood for; being the number one fuel and Logistics Company and providing transparent access to our storage and distribution facilities.

“One of the essential things we have set out to do as leadership was to be able to expand Ghana’s current strategic reserves from six weeks to 12 weeks.”