The National Petroleum Authority (NPA) has announced that by the first quarter of 2023 the much-talked-about Cylinder Recirculation Model (CRM) will be fully operational.

According to the NPA, this is to eliminate the activities of gas filling stations stemming from the gas explosion at the Atomic Junction in the Greater Accra Region.

On October 7, 2017, a petrol tanker offloading products at the state-owned Ghana Oil Company (GOIL) station caught fire resulting in a large-scale explosion at the site of a Liquified Petroleum Gas (LPG) station located at Atomic Junction in the Madina Constituency of the Greater Accra Region.

The Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of NPA, Dr Mustapha Abdul-Hamid announced the phasing out of the gas filling stations at a press soiree held in Accra.

He said going forward, gas fillings stations will become exchange points where customers will have to exchange their cylinders for a filled one from the cylinder bottling plants.

“We are encouraging investors to venture into the cylinder bottling plant establishments in the county, particularly up north,” he said.

He said already GOIL is doing one in the Kumasi metropolis of the Ashanti Region and one at Tema in the Greater Accra Region.

He added that these two bottling plants will come on stream by the first quarter of next year for the full implementation of the CRM exercise.

He expressed worry over the delay in rolling out the CRM exercise all these years.

He revealed that four other companies have renewed their licences with the NPA to start the processes for the establishment of the bottling plants.