The Bulk Oil Storage and Transport (BOST) has started using its two barges which were left idle for three years, to convey fuel to the Buipe Depot in the Northern Region. A source told the Ghanaian Times that the transportation of the fuel to the north via the Volta Lake started on July 30, this year. The Times in an earlier publication had disclosed that the barges had been left idle at the dock of the Volta Lake Transport Company (VLTC) at Akosombo with its attendant increase in cost of transportation of the product by road. Following that publication, the source said BOST made frantic efforts to operationalise the barges. According to it, since the two barges, BOST I and BOST II, were inaugurated they have made six trips conveying nine million litres of diesel. The source said the two barges complemented the work of those being made by two other barges which belonged to the Volta Lake Transport company (VLTC), the KO I and the PK.I. The source mentioned that VLTC barges had been lifting 750,000 litres of diesel each to the Buipe Depot, every week thus, keeping the supply of fuel to the north steady. The source explained that fuel tankers conveyed the product from the Tema Oil Refinery to the VLTC dock at Akosombo before being transported by the barges. The original idea was to pump the fuel to the barges direct through pipelines constructed from Tema to Akosombo “however pilfering of the products by saboteurs continues to discourage that initiative,” it said. The source said BOST had constructed a petroleum landing jetty on the Volta Lake at Debre in the Northern Region to ensure safe landing and delivery when the water volume of the lake dropped and navigating upstream to Buipe was impossible. It said the measure would ensure the constant supply of petroleum products to the northern part of the country.