The Chamber of Petroleum Consumers (COPEC) says the fuel price floor policy is restricting competition among oil marketing companies and undermining efficiency gains in Ghana’s downstream petroleum sector.
COPEC Executive Secretary Duncan Amoah said the policy, which sets a minimum price below which fuel cannot be sold, is interfering with normal market behaviour and limiting how companies compete on cost and efficiency.
He was speaking on Metro TV’s Good Afternoon Ghana on Monday, January 19, 2026, during an interview with Bright Nana Kwasi Amaning.
“In pure economic sense, it is simply a threshold. If you did a floor, it means that it is the lower price below which one cannot sell,” he said, describing the policy as a direct constraint on competitive pricing.
According to him, competition in the downstream sector has historically allowed smaller and more efficient oil marketing companies to grow by reducing overheads and passing savings on to consumers.
He argued that the current price floor now prevents such companies from lowering prices even when their cost structures allow it.
“The current leader of the downstream was never dominant. It was a minor player,” Duncan Amoah said.
“Smaller companies look at it and say maybe we can reduce our overhead and extend that benefit to the market, and Ghanaians go for them.”
He noted that under the price floor regime, that pathway is being blocked.
“We are saying we will not allow that anymore because we want to put a price floor,” he added.
Duncan Amoah dismissed suggestions that the policy is necessary to protect smaller oil marketing companies from being pushed out by larger competitors.
He said consolidation through partnerships, mergers or brand alignments is a normal outcome of competition, not a market failure.
“There are times you find some of these companies aligning brand-wise to other companies so that they can be able to maintain a good market share,” he said.
“It could happen between the smaller and the midsize, the smaller and the bigger, the bigger and the smaller.”
He explained that competition naturally favours firms with scale and volume, regardless of regulatory controls.
“At the height of competition is what you will call economies of scale,” Mr Amoah said.
The COPEC Executive Secretary also argued that the policy distorts pricing decisions for companies holding older stock purchased at higher exchange rates.
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