03 Jul 2024

Botswana Oil has allayed fears that the Tshele Hill oil storage facility may pose environmental hazards to the farmers who live near the area.

Botswana Oil’s Project Manager, Mr Leabaneng Matsuane, said when addressing Kgatleng District Council’s full meeting recently that Botswana Oil was compliant with fuel industry international standards.

He said Botswana Oil was committed to creating and maintaining a safe, clean, and healthy workplace, hence it was environmentally friendly and that the organisations had policies in place that safeguarded the sustainability of the environment.

The plot for the facility has a 50meter buffer zone fence, so that it was located far from livestock and ploughing fields.

He said this in the wake of concerns raised by councillors that the oil facility might be environmentally unsafe for farmers who live near the oil storage.

Meanwhile, the council learnt that government has decided to complete the remaining works at Tshele Hills Storage Facility through a Public Private Partnership (PPP) model.

Mr Matsuane said the PPP process was divided into two phases with phase one entailing development of investor readiness study (PPP Feasibility Study) and phase two involving procurement of private partner.

He said the project was intended to increase national strategic petroleum storage capacity to 60 (strategic) plus five (operational) days coverage by constructing a tank farm and associated works at Tshele Hills.

He said request for proposal for the project was issued to the market October 2023 and the anticipated date of receipt of request for proposals bid was August 2024, and would be followed by other bidding processes, while construction commencement was scheduled for October 2025.

Meanwhile, Botswana Oil’s Senior Manager, Marketing and Communications, Ms Mpho Mokgosi, told councillors that Botswana Oil was committed to citizen inclusivity in the fuel economy.

In that regard, she said Botswana Oil was implementing the Citizen Economic Empowerment Programme (CEEP), aimed at accelerating citizen inclusion in the Oil and Gas Value Chain.

This, she said,  was facilitated through initiatives aimed at ensuring meaningful participation of citizens to facilitate growth, development, and sustainability of citizen entities.

Ms Mokgosi also said through the CEEP programme, four citizen owned companies had been fully developed while 40 citizen owned trucks were hauling fuel to Debswana mines with legacy projects in Boteti and Jwaneng areas handed over to communities to run housing bulk transport support services

She said Botswana Oil also intended to facilitate citizen owned companies to take over the supply of fuel to the mines as wholesalers working through Botswana Oil Limited.

Thus, she said, the Botswana Energy Regulatory Authority (BERA) Act of 2022 and the Botswana Energy Regulatory Authority (Importation of Petroleum Products Allocation) Order of 2023 empowered citizen owned companies to be allowed to import petroleum products.

“This move ensures that the state oil company, Botswana Oil (BOL) imports 90 per cent of the country’s fuel, while other companies have the right to import the outstanding 10 per cent,” she said.

When commenting, councillors complained about monopoly in the fuel industry, which they said was dominated by large, foreign multinational firms, including fuel transportation.

They also said the fuel economy was a far-fetched dream as big conglomerates stood to benefit alone because the industry required huge amounts of starting capital, which they said was not feasible for ordinary Batswana to meaningfully participate.

Councillors urged Botswana Oil to guard against cartels that intended to leave Batswana out of fuel transportation. ENDS