The Acting Chief Executive of the Petroleum Commission, Egbert Faibille Jnr, has commended the leading Oil Marketing Company in Ghana, GOIL for the construction of its Marine Gas Oil tanks at the Port of Takoradi.

According to him, the coming into operation of the Marine Gas Oil tanks will position the GOIL positively to attract investment into the sector.

He was speaking to a team of journalists after inspecting the 13.5 million litre facility in the Port of Takoradi.

The facility is fitted with the latest modern environmental safety equipment and standards. The 15million dollar facility solely financed by GOIL will enable the company store and subsequently, supply Marine Gas Oil at the Takoradi Port to fuel vessels that berth at the Takoradi Harbour.

The project is expected to position GOIL as an important player in the bunkering sector and enable it to benefit from the huge trade in Marine Gas Oil, 60 percent of which is done offshore.

According to Egbert Faibille Jnr, the ports have come to accept the fact that oil and gas is part of the economy, hence, the Petroleum Commission will give GOIL any encouragement along the way.

“We will be consulting with them further to give them any perspective we think will help them to make the facility that is coming up a master class plan. But I must once again say that, we will support GOIL, we endorse this facility and as a Petroleum Commission, we will support GOIL to get good business so that local content targets will be met," he said.

Egbert Faibille lauded the efforts of the company and entreated other State-owned entities to emulate the example of GOIL.

"We need to position ourselves ahead of time, I will say that GOIL has been very responsive even though the oil situation dawned on us all of a sudden some time ago. But within a span of about 10 or so years, they have been able to do this. So I will encourage other state entities that may have something to do with oil and gas to start positioning themselves,” he explained.

The Chief Operating Officer of GOIL, Alex Josiah Adzew, noted that the facility will attract ocean-going vessels to turn to the Takoradi Port, thus rake in the much needed revenue to GOIL and the state.

"I can assure you that with such a facility, in terms of availability, I cannot see why anybody will complain because these vessels come in at a go, they take 200, 000 metres so if you have maximum 500 meters, we will only have a few that can go in for 600,000 litres at a go.

He said GOIL is expecting all the respiration companies to start lifting from the Port of Takoradi and “they have inspected the place, everyone is happy, especially about the automation, because we are eliminating human error, human factors and what have you and they are very well excited about this."