Ghana’s retail fuel market entered its second pricing window of April with striking price gaps between oil marketing companies, as government cost absorption measures took hold but failed to produce uniform outcomes at the pump.
As of Friday, April 17, petrol prices range from a low of ₵10.56 per litre to a high of ₵14.49 per litre, a spread of nearly ₵4.00 within the same regulated market. Diesel shows an even wider divergence, from ₵11.76 at the bottom end to ₵18.50 at the top, according to retail price data from 22 oil marketing companies operating across the country.
The National Petroleum Authority (NPA) set the price floor for the April 16 to 30 window at ₵13.27 per litre for petrol and ₵16.10 per litre for diesel, following a Cabinet-approved intervention in which the government agreed to absorb ₵2.00 per litre on diesel and ₵0.36 per litre on petrol. The Energy Ministry confirmed the relief package will cost the state approximately ₵200 million in foregone revenue.
Goil and StarOil have aligned their petrol prices exactly at the NPA floor of ₵13.27, while TotalEnergies and Shell are pricing significantly above it at ₵14.49 and ₵14.19 respectively. At the lower end, IBM is selling petrol at ₵10.56, well below the regulatory minimum, suggesting that not all companies have yet adjusted to the new pricing window directives.
On diesel, the gap between market leaders and lower-tier operators is sharper. TotalEnergies is selling diesel at ₵18.50 per litre while Frontier and IBM are pricing as low as ₵11.90 and ₵11.76 respectively, both below the NPA floor of ₵16.10.
Earlier, the Chamber of Oil Marketing Companies (COMAC) had projected that without government action, petrol prices would rise by nearly 2 percent while diesel would fall by about 3.8 percent. Industry sources indicated those projections did not fully account for the government’s decision to reduce margins, noting that without the intervention, prices could have climbed more sharply.
The pricing divergence reflects a market still in transition. Global crude oil prices surged earlier this year following geopolitical disruptions, with crude rising from around $63 per barrel in late February to a peak of $102 after the Strait of Hormuz closure, a key route for approximately 20 percent of global crude supply. Prices have since eased to around $95 per barrel, though pressure on Ghana’s import costs remains given the cedi’s weakness against the dollar.
Analysts have warned that the government’s relief mechanism, which involves absorbing costs directly rather than reducing levies, carries fiscal risks if payment timelines to oil marketing companies slip, an arrangement Ghana’s energy sector has experienced before.
The second April pricing window is now being closely watched to determine whether the government’s intervention holds, and what adjustments OMCs not yet aligned with the new NPA floor will make in the days ahead.
