The National Petroleum Authority (NPA) has halted the sale of fuel supplied by the Chinese-owned Sentuo Oil Refinery, citing suspected inferior quality.
This decision comes after the Institute for Energy Security (IES) and the Chamber of Petroleum Consumers (COPEC) requested that the Authority shut down the Oil Refinery on the grounds that it was engaged in illegal operations.
COPEC and IES issued a combined statement on the supposed distribution of substandard fuel to Ghanaians, as well as the refinery’s activities without the needed NPA license.
According to the statement, the NPA Act of 2005 requires that any entity seeking to operate in the downstream section of the industry get license from the board.
Despite this, COPEC and IES believe Sentuo has failed to get the essential permissions for oil processing and selling.
During an interview with Umaru Sanda Amadu on Thursday’s Eyewitness News on Citi FM, which was observed by ATLFM NEWS, Ubeidalah Saed, the NPA’s Head of Quality Control, said that they are now reviewing the products given to various petrol stations.
He said that the Authority is consulting with the Refinery to determine the next steps.
“We are still having discussions with them as to what really led to that because the normal modus operandi of the NPA Quality Assurance system is that we grant you approval based on the values of the certificate then we follow up physically just to do a random check just to ascertain that indeed the purported quality on the paper i what it is.”
“We have suspended the sale of that particular product…Particularly we are looking at all the filling stations that have been affected. We will be able to get the total outlook and come and make a very meaningful conclusion.”
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Meanwhile, the NPA’s statement on Thursday emphasized that the IES and COPEC’s claim that “out-of-specification products are reported as causing damage to vehicles and machinery” was both incorrect and worrying.
Furthermore, it was said that the issue is connected to high vapour pressure, and so no damage to automobiles has occurred.
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