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The Bulk Oil Storage and Transportation Company Ltd (BOST) is in the final laps of preparations to construct the largest petroleum terminal and strategic depot in the country that will create 500 new permanent jobs. The US$200-million BOST Petroleum Terminal to be sited at the coast of Atwereboanda in the Pumpuni Traditional Area of the Ahanta West District, Western Region, will be linked with rail wagons, offshore pipelines and other transmission devices to receive and transmit processed natural gas from the Jubilee Field. The Managing Director of BOST, Dr Yao Akoto, said the Pumpuni Terminal would be the biggest strategic petroleum depot in the country and was intended to be the petroleum hub for West African. Dr Akoto disclosed this on March 15 when he led a delegation to pay a courtesy call on the Ahanta West District Coordinating Council as well as the chiefs and people of Pumpuni, the people who have willingly given their land for the project. BOST said it would work closely with the community to design programmes to develop the skills of the people of the area for some of the high-end jobs such as oil terminal management and logistics, adding that the company would also support schools in the area to improve on the quality of education of that area. �We want to be the hub and provider of oil and gas services in West Africa and we will want to partner the Western Region and the Ahanta West District in our quest to provide these services. Site preparations will start in the third quarter of this year and the project should take two years to complete,� Dr Akoto explained. BOST has already received an Executive Instrument from the government to acquire a 300-acre plot located on the Pumpuni reef for the state-of-the-art petroleum terminal which will include a dispatch centre to link to a transmission network for the distribution of processed natural gas from the Jubilee field and other newly discovered fields. BOST has already completed the payment of compensation for economic crops on the land three years ago. �The company is committed to ensuring that it offers fair compensation for the land that it has acquired and we will also continue with our corporate social responsibilities which we have done in other communities where we have depots,� the BOST managing director assured the chiefs and people. The District Chief Executive for Ahanta West, Mr Joseph Dofoyena, said the district coordinating Council was aware of the project and had already started sensitising the people of the area to be respectful, law abiding and not ferment trouble. He said in view of the rush for land in the area, the district had gone ahead to map the area and generated designs which it wanted developers to fit in. Mr. Dofoyena said his team would work with that of BOST to make the project fit into the design for the District and would also support the entire process to ensure that the project came into fruition. Elders of the community took turns to thank BOST for selecting the area to site the project, dding that they would support it wholeheartedy. They, however, appealed to the government, particularly to BOST to keep its pledge to develop the skills of the people so that they could easily be integrated in upcoming turn-key projects of the kind BOST was embarking upon. Some youth in the community indicated to the GRAPHIC BUSINESS in an interview that they were readying themselves in anticipation of getting jobs in the oil and gas sector which was fast opening up the Western Region to investors. One young man, Mohammed Yankey, already had skills in sand blasting, sand writing and spraying and had gone ahead to register a formal company to start business. Another young man, Solomon Cudjoe, was an apprentice driver who was learning to drive and operate trucks and earthmoving machines. BOST presented some food items to the community as a token to cement their already cordial relationship.