The Bulk Oil Storage and Transportation, BOST, says it is strategizing to increase its market revenue from 23% to 50% within the next five years.
The company says that this will enable it to pay dividends to the state.
The Managing Director of the company, Edwin Provencal, said this at Dodowa in the Eastern Region while addressing the Institute of Finance and Economic Journalists on BOST’s planned expansion of storage capacity and innovation in transportation.
“In order for us to be relevant and make money, we need to leverage on our assets, especially the assets in Bolgatanga which is positioned for export of a lot of our products to landlocked countries like Burkina Faso and Mali.”
“The benefit of doing that is to be able to generate enough internally generated funds and for once pay dividends to the good people of this country. We need a minimum of $150 million to turn BOST around, to fix the tanks, rehabilitate the batches, to fix new pipelines, automate the depots to make it extremely efficient and then some large trade lines to trade,” he added.
Mr. Provencal also said they want the BOST Margin to be approved by National Petroleum Authority (NPA) which will enable BOST to have the needed revenue to do maintenance of tank farms and build pipelines to stop the transportation of fuel by road.
He said transportation of fuel by road is usually expensive and time-consuming.
“The BOST margin historically has played a significant role in the development and maintenance of BOST infrastructure to date. As we are all aware, the current 3 pesewas was approved in 2011. I’m sure we can attest to the fact that inflation alone would have eroded this three pesewas and I’m sure that accounts for the state of our current infrastructure.”
“The doubling of the BOST margin to 6 pesewas approved way back in 2017 is yet to be implemented, but the BOST margin is extremely critical that if for nothing at all, the existing equipment would have to be maintained and that is the margin we can use to maintain the equipment. So we hope that the regulator which is the National Petroleum Authority would implement the extra three pesewas in the near future,” the BOST MD added.
BOST currently transport 80-90 percent of its oil by road and believes an implemented reviewed BOST margin could help.
Edwin Provencal replaced George Mensah Okley as MD of the company in August 2019 following the resignation of the former.
Appointment of Edwin Provencal
The appointment of Mr. Provencal was expected to bring an end to the woes of BOST considering the experience he has gathered in running various companies.
He has, through his Balanced Scorecard expertise, transformed various companies including Vodafone, helping them leapfrogging from third to second in terms of revenue market share in the Telecoms industry.
He led Exceed Company Limited to become the premier contact centre in Ghana.
He is also a founding member of the Ghana Association of IT Services and Companies (GASSCOM) and has over 15 years of Project Management experience.