Energy Minister Meets Petroleum Stakeholders Over Laycan Management and Downstream Reforms
The Minister for Energy and Green Transition, John Abdulai Jinapor, on Wednesday, June 25, 2025, convened a high-level meeting with key stakeholders in the petroleum sector to deliberate on critical issues surrounding laycan management and downstream reforms.
Participants at the meeting included representatives from the National Petroleum Authority (NPA), Chamber of Bulk Oil Distributors (CBOD), Tema Oil Refinery (TOR), Bulk Oil Storage and Transportation Company Limited (BOST), Committee of Oil Marketing Companies (COMAC), the Chamber of Petroleum Consumers (COPEC), and other industry players.
The central theme of the engagement was the optimisation of laycan—the contractual period within which a vessel is expected to arrive and load or discharge cargo. Mr Jinapor stressed the importance of streamlining operations across the petroleum supply chain to minimise delays and inefficiencies.
“As Minister, I take full responsibility for the challenges associated with laycan. I am not interested in blame games,” he said. “I’ve spoken to some of you in the industry and understand the challenges. You have my commitment that we will soon publish a roadmap to address them.”
He further underscored the Ministry’s resolve to ensure strict compliance with laycan schedules, with exceptions only in extraordinary situations.
The discussions also delved into broader downstream reforms targeted at modernising the petroleum sector, boosting operational effectiveness, and maintaining the reliability of fuel supply across the country.
Touching on infrastructure enhancement, the Minister disclosed that government is actively pursuing the construction of a new mooring system to ease the current logistical constraints within the sector.
The engagement forms part of ongoing efforts by the Ministry to reposition Ghana’s downstream petroleum sector to better support the country’s energy transition agenda and economic development priorities.
CBOD Blames NPA for Laycan Disruptions, Cites Presidential Directive Violation and $40m Losses to Industry
The Chamber of Bulk Oil Distributors (CBOD) in a statement on Tuesday, June 24, 2025, sharply criticised the National Petroleum Authority (NPA) over persistent disruptions to the country’s Laycan import schedule, warning that the regulatory breaches have undermined market stability and cost the industry over $40 million in demurrage and related charges during the first half of 2025.
In the statement, CBOD said the repeated and arbitrary revisions to the fuel import timetable – developed through multi-stakeholder consultations and overseen by the NPA – had severely compromised operational predictability for Bulk Import, Distribution and Export Companies (BIDECs), distorting pricing and increasing costs for consumers.
“The Laycan schedule has been amended more than 11 times in the first two quarters of 2025 alone, without consultation with industry,” the CBOD stated. “Each revision affects up to ten cargoes, leading to cumulative delays of around 30 days per incident.”
The chamber estimated that the disruptions added between GHS 0.47 and GHS 0.60 per litre to retail fuel prices between January and May this year.
