Zeal Environmental Technology, a Ghanaian owned company, has given stakeholders in Ghana’s growing oil and gas industry another reason why they should fast track the passage of the local content bill into law. This is as a result of the company's ambitious program to turn oily waste into kerosene.
By the end of next year the company hopes to produce kerosene from the oily waste they receive from their clients and sell it at a cheaper price to the people within the company’s catchment area and its environs.
This is as result of advance test being carried out by the company at their state of the art waste management facility at Takoradi.
ZETL currently receives ships generated oily waste water, general garbage from all vessels calling at the Takoradi Port and also managing waste generated by the Operators of the emerging Oil and Gas industry for safe disposal and in sound environmental manner at Environmental Protection Agency approved facilities.
Their clients in the oil and gas industry include the West African Gas Pipeline Company, Tullow, Kosmos, Eni, Schlumberger, Hess, Vitol, Baker Hughes, Transocean, Afren, Technip and Vanco.
Zeal Limited, incorporated in Ghana in 1977, had offered Corrosion Engineering Services to Ashanti Goldfields Company Limited from 1989 to 2002 and other mining companies. In 2006 Zeal Environmental Technologies Limited (ZETL) took over Zeal Limited to provide flexible, cost effective and competitive solutions to environmental problems in the emerging Oil and Gas industry.
According to the General Manager of the company, Wilfred Bentum Johnson, the kerosene will be produced from the recycled oil waste at the plant. He said the company is very confident of the viability of their test.
Adding his voice to this news, the Chief Executive Officer, Kwaku Ennin indicated that adding value to whatever waste the company manages is their priority. “I have been telling them that for me waste is no waste unless of course you do not know how to add value to it,” he added.
He disclosed that the company hopes to enhance its revenue base to enable them invest into more machines and the technology to distilled the recovered oil waste that will generate kerosene, which they would give to the communities at a cheaper rate.
Already companies in the shoe and textiles industry are benefitting from byproduct of the retreated oil waste from the company. “Any company that uses heat or the boiler system and relies on electricity can replace their energy demands with our treated product which would enable them to cut down their energy cost to more than 50percent,” he added.
Other value added products that the company has indicated that the retreated oil waste could be used for include soligram for wood preservation and bitumen for road construction.
Management of Zeal Environmental Technology are full of aspiration for the growing oil and gas industry in the country and hopes to grow five times more in the next five years.
However, the aspirations of Zeal Environmental Technology stand threatened by the capital intensive nature of their work. According to the CEO, “Accessing capital in the country is very difficult and that gives a huge advantage to their foreign competitors who have easy access to capital.”
He emphasized that if this concern is not address by government then the essence of the local content initiative of the country would be in vain, adding that “Government must set up a special fund to support entrepreneurs in the oil and gas industry.”
The call for financial support has been strongly argued for in the draft local content bill. “There is the need for a consensus on the ground rules for identifying and supporting local companies to participate and grow in the sector. The underlining rule should be local companies that demonstrate capacity to increase value beyond the seed investment,” ISODEC has strongly advocated for.
Evidence abounds in support of the assertion that countries that have been able to derive substantial benefits from their natural resources are those that are either directly or indirectly involved in the exploitation of their resources.
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