A fire outbreak that occurred at the Bulk Oil Storage and Transportation Company Limited (BOST) last Friday led to a total loss of GH¢194,760.00 and damaged two trucks containing diesel and petrol.
The fire occurred at the truck park of the Buipe Depot of BOST, which is the central fuel holding point of BOST serving the Savannah, Northern, North-East, Upper East and Upper West regions in the late hours of Friday.
The depot receives products through river barges (via the Volta Lake) and through Bulk Road Vehicles (BRVs) loaded from the Accra Plains depot of BOST.
A statement signed by the Adjei Marlick, the Head of Corporate Communications and External Affairs at the BOST and copied to the Ghana News Agency, said it took a combined force of the depot technical staff and fire officers from the Damongo and Tamale Fire Stations to bring the fire under control around 2200hours.
It said at the current price of GH¢5.41/liter, the value of the product lost was estimated at GH¢194,760.00.
It said four BRVs, two of which were loaded with petroleum products were considerably damaged adding that “the two trucks contained 36,000 liters of diesel (AGO) and 36,000 liters of petrol (PMS)” and that the diesel (AGO) is intact though the truck is considerably damaged.
The statement said the affected BRVs belonged to Ghana Oil Company Limited, GOIL (3) and BF Energy (1) adding that, “In line with our Standard Operating Procedures, trucks loaded with products for distribution to Oil Marketing Companies (OMC) are not supposed to park within the premises of the depot”.
It added that the exact cause of the fire had not been ascertained yet and that investigations were underway adding that, “We shall furnish the public with the details once the technical team completes the investigations”.
The statement said though a sizable volume of products loaded for OMCs, were destroyed in the incident, product supply in the northern regions and the general operations of BOST as a company would not be negatively affected.
The company assured the public that its strategic fuel stocks for the northern regions and the entire nation are intact.
Meanwhile, the Savannah Regional Fire Commander ACFO Kwesi Baffuor Awuah has attributed the delay in fighting the fire outbreak to the fact that fire fighters had to wait for the arrival of fire appliances from Damongo about two hours drive from Buipe, because what they have at Buipe was out of service.
“The Service received funds last week to fix the fire tender, the Volvo Automotive Company which works on the appliances is on Christmas break which is the reason the vehicle is still indisposed,” he explained.
The Commander ACFO Baffour Awuah made this known when the Savannah Regional Minister Salifu Braimah visited the scene of the fire outbreak.
ACFO Awuah revealed three people sustained various degrees of injuries.
They have been identified as Ibrahim Musah, Mohammed Karim, and Mohammed Tahiru.
By Zubaida Ismail with additional files from GNA | 3news.com
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