Ghana’s Petroleum Sector in Flux: Record Consumption Meets Mounting Revenue Losses and Market Shifts

Ghana’s petroleum landscape in 2025 is defined by a sharp contrast between booming domestic demand and significant fiscal challenges. Total petroleum product consumption surged by 15.29% to reach 7.45 billion litres, driven largely by massive increases in fuel allocation for power generation—specifically fuel oil, which saw a staggering 946% increase. Amidst this growth, a historic shift occurred in the retail market, where Star Oil recorded a 27.76% growth in sales to surpass GOIL PLC as the nation’s market leader, capturing a 10.68% market share. However, these industry gains are heavily overshadowed by a governance crisis and massive revenue leakages that threaten to undermine investor confidence in the upstream and downstream sectors.

According to reports from the Public Interest and Accountability Committee (PIAC) and the 2025 Petroleum Product Analysis, the state is grappling with severe financial discrepancies. The government lost over GH¢600 million in tax revenue due to 199 million litres of unaccounted petroleum products, representing 2.1% of the total supply. This loss is attributed to illegal activities and inadequate monitoring across the value chain. In the upstream sector, petroleum receipts plummeted from $1.36 billion in 2024 to $770 million in 2025, as crude production dropped to 37.3 million barrels. PIAC further highlighted a financial crisis within the Ghana National Petroleum Corporation (GNPC), flagging $561.65 million in unaccounted revenues owed by its subsidiary, Explorco.

While retail competition intensifies, with firms like Star Oil and Gaso Petroleum seeing significant volume gains, the nation remains precariously dependent on imports. Domestic refinery output covered only about 18-25% of national consumption, exposing the economy to the volatility of the global market. This vulnerability has been exacerbated by geopolitical tensions in the Middle East involving the U.S., Israel, and Iran, which have pushed oil prices toward the $115 per barrel mark. Although the Ghanaian government recently directed fuel price cuts to provide relief to households and small businesses, the Institute for Energy Security (IES) has cautioned against populist moves such as scrapping the Bulk Oil Storage and Transportation (BOST) margin, citing its necessity for maintaining strategic reserves and infrastructure.

To restore stability and credibility to the sector, stakeholders are calling for urgent structural reforms. PIAC and industry analysts emphasize the need for stricter regulatory oversight, the integration of modular refineries into national tracking systems, and the immediate recovery of outstanding debts owed to the state. While Ghana secured $3.5 billion in investment commitments and saw growth in the Heritage Fund to $1.38 billion, the long-term health of the industry depends on the government's ability to curb illegal leakages and enhance domestic refining capacity to mitigate the impact of imported inflation.