Paper short abstract:

This paper looks at everyday practices of negotiating and manipulating time at a Petroleum Storage Depot. Privatisation of distribution has left state infrastructure dormant, and the economic productivity has been replaced by circulation of rumours and projecting the arrival of petroleum products.

Paper long abstract:

In a small town in Ghana's Northern Region, engineers, technicians and the people alike were waiting for petrol. The main driver for most businesses was the infrastructural entity of a Petroleum Storage Depot, which had increased trade and activity in the town since the 1990s. While the depot in theory was still functioning and fully staffed, it was left in limbo as privatisation of distribution was in tune with current economic reforms. In this paper, I examine how people deal with and explain how and why they have been disconnected from the main infrastructure of petroleum product distribution in Ghana. The paper looks at notions of time and waiting in a perplexing situation, in a growing downstream petroleum industry.

A number of reasons are identified as to why pipelines and tank farms remain dormant in Ghana. The paper argues that local negotiations and resistance to the current system is coped with through manipulating time. Every month, rumours, instead of products, arrived at the Petroleum Storage Depot. Technicians and engineers distributed information to keep people and businesses alert and ready to re-connect. This provided an environment in which an otherwise stagnating town and local economy challenged new structures created by privatisation.

This paper is based on data collected in the town of Buipe, as part of a wider project on Ghana's petroleum product distribution system. It looks at everyday social practices in regards to petroleum product and infrastructure. It is analysed in the environment of economic reform, austerity, and expectation from oil and gas discoveries.