While the just ended acute shortage of Liquified Petroleum Gas (LPG) in the system caught consumers and suppliers of the product counting their losses and seeking alternatives, officials of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) are caught counting the number of trees that could have been felled and used for charcoal. Maxwell Adombila Akalaare looks at the frustrations of the agency.
THE rising demand for charcoal as an alternative to Liquified Petroleum Gas (LPG) on the market has set officials of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) worrying over the number of trees that would be felled for charcoal.
A Principal Programmes Officer at the agency, Mrs Florence Agyei told the GRAPHIC BUSINESS in an interview on the concerns of EPA over the reported hiking demand for charcoal, especially as an alternative to the fluctuating supply of LPG that the EPA fear the situation could lead to an abusive felling of trees in the nation’s already depleting forests for charcoal production to meet any unexpected demands.
The EPA’s concerns trails earlier ones by the Forestry Commission which feared a continues shortage of LPG in the market could likely push the demand for charcoal and firewood leading to illegal felling of trees for firewood and charcoal production and their attendant negative effects on the environment.
According to Mrs Agyei, rising demand for charcoal in the country had the tendency of causing charcoal producers to fell more trees and do more burning “and these lead to environmental related problems such as bush fires and deforestations.
“Once charcoal usage increases, there is the tendency for people to also increase production by cutting and burning more trees as a way of meeting this demand and this is what the EPA is worried of,” Mrs Agyei noted.
She, however admitted that the agency was yet to confirm if indeed more trees have been felled and burnt since “that increasing demand could have been met by an old stock of charcoal.”
Demand for charcoal in most cities nation-wide had increased as more and more domestic users of LPG sought alternatives to gas following the product’s fluctuating supply in the system. The fluctuating supply of LPG re-emerged mid last month after an earlier one was contained late last year.
The rising demand had consequently sent prices of the product escalating, rising from GH¢12 about four months ago to currently sell between GH¢17 and GH¢19 in some major cities country-wide.
“If we had the mandate, we would have regulated charcoal production because of its direct impact on the environment but we don’t have that mandate,” Mrs Agyei said adding that charcoal production had now become a big time business and a major source of income to most people causing the producers to go all length to get the raw material (wood).
“That is our problem; these producers use wood from trees for their work, trees they did not plant or even replace after the felling,” Mrs Agyei noted.
CONSUMERS, SUPPLIERS COUNT LOSSES
Statistics from the Tema Oil Refinery (TOR), local wholesalers of LPG show that daily demand for the product had doubled from 500 metric tonnes to 1,000 metric tonnes over the past few years, a phenomenon the refinery said is traceable to commercial vehicles increasing switch from petrol or diesel to LPG usage.
The refinery has thus upped production to between 800 and 1,000 metric tonnes per day and stepped up LPG import from an initial 2,000 and 3,000 metric tonnes per week to between 5,000 and 6,000 metric tonnes per week as it strategises to meet this hiking demand.
TOR’s weak financial stands and its lack of adequate storage facilities is, however not helping matters.
Most industry watchers had attributed the yet to be stabilised LPG shortage to TOR’s inability to under take maximum production or acquire the needed storage facilities for an upped import.
The refinery, has meanwhile blamed the shortage, which caused various losses to consumers and suppliers alike on an unexpected rise in LPG usage by commercial vehicles.
Whatever be the cause, commercial and domestic consumers of the product are calling for a realistic strategy that could make LPG shortage a thing of the past.
An official of a major Oil Marketing Company and wholesaler of LPG admitted to the GRAPHIC BUSINESS on condition of anonymity that the shortage caused losses to his company but added that the risk associated nature of LPG had made the said company to do less dealings in it.
“It is not even how much we as a company lost as a result of that shortage but to what extend was everybody affected; how many domestic and commercial users lost what due to this problem,” the source said.
The source would, however not say if the fluatuating nature of LPG supplies in the country would cause his company to limit its business in that area except to say “we don’t even do much business in that area because of the sector’s associated risks.”
For now, the source said what consumers nad suppliers of LPG wanted is not a strategy that would address the fluctuating supply in a short term but “one that would tackle the problem now and forever.”
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