Keynote speaker:
Hon Kwasi Amoako-Attah, Minister, Ministry of Roads and Highways, Ghana
Hon. Kwasi Amoako-Attah, assumed office as the Minister of Roads and Highways, Ghana, in February, 2017. He brings to the Ministry over 30 years’ experience in administration, marketing and entrepreneurship. Hon. Amoako-Attah is the Member of Parliament for Atiwa West Constituency in the Eastern region, a position he has held since 2010. As a member of the 5th Parliament he served on four committees namely; Local Government, Subsidiary Legislation, Judiciary and Privileges with distinction. As a member of the current Parliament, (the 7th Parliament), Hon. Amoako-Attah continues to serve on the Local Government Committee as its Deputy Ranking Member, as well as a member of the Standing Orders Committee. He is a Co-Founder and Managing Attorney for the law firm, Amicus Legal companies in Ghana. Prior to entering active politics, Hon. Kwasi Amoako-Attah was the Head of Legal for all the three Vlisco Companies of Ghana. He also worked in almost all the subsidiary divisions of Unilever at very senior levels as a Departmental Head in Marketing, Sales, Logistics and Legal.
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Frank Ramsey Lartey, Chief Executive Officer, Platinum Seal and Core Construction
Frank Kwaku Ramsay Lartey is the founder and chief executive of Core Construction Limited and its subsidiary companies, Platinum Seal Limited and Platinum Seal Quarry. Mr Lartey was born in Accra, Ghana. He graduated in building technology from the University of Science and Technology in Kumasi. After university, he worked on numerous projects relating to plant and equipment designing, specifically for the road bituminous industry. Some of these plants and equipment are currently being used in Ghana and the Middle East. Platinum Seal Limited is currently the largest bitumen processing facility in the sub-region where any form of bitumen can be modified to other grades. Mr Lartey has received a number of awards for his contributions to the industry, both locally and internationally.
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Hassan Tampuli, Chief Executive Officer, National Petroleum Authority (NPA)
Hassan Tampuli is a graduate of the University of Ghana Business School and Faculty of Law, UG. He was called to the Ghana Bar in 2011. He holds a Masters of Law degree (LL.M) in energy and environmental law from the Ohio State University Moritz College of Law.
He previously worked with the National Service Scheme and rose to the rank of Deputy Head of HR and Acting Director of Postings. He later set up and headed the legal department of the scheme between April 2014 and November 2015. He subsequently joined prestigious law firm Bentsi - Enchill, Letsa & Ankomah's Energy and Natural Resource Practice Group as an associate before co-founding the law firm’s East-bridge Associates, a corporate law firm.
Hassan taught constitutional law at Wisconsin International University College for the 2014-15 academic year before resigning to concentrate on his private legal practice. He was a member of the NPP's manifesto subcommittee on Energy and the Transition Subcommittee on Energy.
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Collins Donkor, Director of Contracts, Ghana Highways Authority
Collins Donkor is passionate about roads. He has spent 26 years since graduating as a civil engineer in public service working on infrastructural development. He directs the contracts division at the Ghana Highways Authority, constructing new roads and maintaining some of those that he helped build when he was director for the Greater Accra and Ashanti regions. Donkor specialises in materials characterisation, evaluation and placement in highways, railways, airports and harbours. He has presented many papers at conferences and seminars, especially on bitumen and bituminous materials.
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Owusu Nana, Local Representative, Ghana, Société Multinationale de Bitumes – SMB
Nana Yaw Owusu Akwanuasa (Otumfuo Mpaboahene) is a Business and Industrial Management graduate from Brighton University College of Technology in the UK. He has over 40 years’ experience in the oil industry, including as General Sales Manager at Texaco Ghana and Marketing Manager for Shell Ghana. He presently works for Down Stream Petroleum, which provides services for oil marketing companies, with a special focus on the bitumen supply chain. Since 1990, he has been an Agent for Société Multinationale de Bitumes (SMB), Abidjan, a bitumen supplier to Ghana. His current designation at SMB, he works closely with all oil marketing companies, the Ghana Highway Authority, Ghana’s Ministry of Roads and Highways and the National Petroleum Authority (NPA). He also chairs the NPA’s Bitumen Supply Chain Review Committee.
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Senyo Kwasi Hosi, Chief Executive Officer, CBOD Ghana
Senyo Hosi is Chief Executive of the Ghana Chamber of Bulk Oil Distributors. He is a finance and economic policy analyst with management experience in several industries including downstream petroleum, industry advocacy, public policy development, finance, logistics and commodity trading. He serves on several public and corporate boards including the Ghana Highways Authority Board, Ghana’s Ministry of Energy’s Ministerial Advisory Board, the Private Enterprise Federation, Legacy Bonds and NDK Capital.
He has been instrumental in the development and implementation of major policies in the Ghanaian energy sector, notably the deregulation of the downstream petroleum sector, and the conceptual development and rationalisation of the Energy Sector Levies Act and its consequent debt management interventions.
He has an MBA in finance and an MA in economic policy management from the University of Ghana.
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Ben Torkornoo, Head of Operations, Ghana Oil Company Ltd (GOIL)
Benjamin Atsu Torkornoo is the head of operations at Ghana Oil, a position he has held since 1 May 2013. Benjamin has more than 30 years’ experience in international downstream oil refining and marketing. Prior to his appointment with Ghana Oil, Benjamin was managing director of Total Eritrea Share Company in Eritrea. He has also served as operations director at Total Jamaica in Jamaica, and as project manager for Total in the Africa/Middle East office based in Paris. Benjamin has held various positions at ExxonMobil as west Africa cluster assets manager based in Dakar, Senegal, west Africa cluster business planning and analysis and controls manager based in Ivory Coast, lead country manager for Mobil Oil Chad/Equatorial Guinea, managing director at Mobil Oil Sierra Leone, operations adviser for Mobil Africa based in Paris, and operations and engineering manager for Mobil Oil Ghana. Prior to ExxonMobil, Benjamin was a mechanical evaluator and material analyst for Ras Lanuf Oil and Gas Processing Complex in the Gulf of Sirt, Libya, a senior consultant at Flemborg Engineering System in Nigeria and a mechanical engineer with BAB Consultancy in Ghana. Benjamin is adept at managing operations for flawless transition during acquisition and mergers, and did so for Total in Jamaica, providing the necessary expertise, training and oversight for operation managers in Mobil Africa subsidiaries, network asset management, audit and controls, cluster budgeting and management reporting, and providing the necessary logistics support for market entry and acquisitions. He also played a role in ExxonMobil’s East Africa Fuels Logistics study. Benjamin has a mechanical engineering degree from Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology in Ghana.
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Mathieu Lasserre, Strategic Procurement Manager, VINCI Construction
Mathieu Lasserre is Strategic Procurement Manager at VINCI Construction and has spent 12 years working for a number of African agencies for Sogea Satom. Mathieu has been head of the strategic purchases division for five years and is in charge of bitumen procurement. His role includes optimising and co-ordinating the whole supply chain from refineries to sites, and looking to improve VINCI’s costs structure and secure supply, as well as ensuring quality levels.
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Laurent Sourlin, Africa Bitumen Manager, Shell
Laurent Sourlin has worked for Shell in sales and marketing positions in Europe and in the retail and lubricants businesses in the US. His roles at Shell have included managing sales teams, International Key Accounts and various marketing projects. He worked for five years to grow the Shell Retail business in Africa with Shell’s licensee, Vivo Energy. In his current role as African Bitumen Manager, he leads a team that contributes to the growth of the continent by providing Shell quality products and a first-class supply chain to Shell customers. The team is supported by bitumen research centres and laboratories around the world.
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Ronnie Muthusamy, Commercial Manager, Engen
Ronnie Muthusamy has 33 years of industrial experience in food, medical and petrochemical environments. He joined Engen Petroleum in 1989 from the Sasol Synthetic Fuels Refinery and held various positions. He is currently commercial marketing manager for construction, marine, utilities and manufacturing within Engen’s International Business Division.
Ronnie has represented the industry in various forums related to the transportation of bitumen as well as the development of technical guidelines and specifications.
Ronnie holds national diplomas in analytical chemistry and medical technology and a national higher diploma in quality management from the Durban University of Technology. He is a certified quality systems auditor and trainer on bitumen HSEQ aspects.
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Aminu Alhassan, Country Manager, Ghana, Group Five
Aminu Mbanba Alhassan is Country Manager for Group Five, Ghana. He has extensive experience in the building industry, including as Commercial/Business Development manager at Lambert Electromec, and as Senior Quantity Surveyor for Consar Building and Civil Engineering Contractors. He started his career as a Technical Officer at the Ghana Survey Department. Aminu received a BSc (Hons) in Quantity Surveying in the UK, and an MBA in Construction and Real Estate from the UK.
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Frank Beer, Regional Technical Manager, Shell
Frank has worked in specialities (bitumen and sulphur) for more than 20 years in various roles and has led the European technical team since 2011. During these years he has presented at numerous national and international conferences and published articles on subjects including: the re-use of asphalt; how to decrease asphalt temperature during manufacturing, transporting and paving; heavy duty asphalt pavements; polymer-modified bitumen; crumb rubber-modified bitumen, and coloured asphalt.
As part of his role Frank is shaping Shell’s global research and development programme and implementing it in local markets. Frank is a member of the technical committee of Eurobitume, the European Bitumen association, and of several research groups in Europe.
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Alessandro Giannattasio, Entrepreneur, Iterchimica
Alessandro Giannattasio is Deputy Chairman at Iterchimica. Alessandro began his career by focusing on new technologies for road pavements, chemical additives, bituminous emulsions and anti-stripping agents. He now manages the crucial foreign-markets area for Iterchimica, where he co-ordinates the work of a network of agents and distributors, and oversees major contracts alongside Iterchimica’s strategic partners. Alessando has been a member of several commissions worldwide. He has also participated at several international congresses and conferences and represented Iterchimica in various working groups. Alessandro has a degree in economic and social sciences from the University of Rome.
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Mustapha Fasinro, Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer, Linetrale Petroleum
Mustapha is a chemical engineer by training. He began his career with Abacan Resource Corporation, where he gained significant experience in offshore oilfield oil and gas exploration and production, reservoir engineering, including drilling infrastructure/facilities development, crude oil production, handling, shipping operations and sales. Mustapha also possess the technical & commercial expertise in the assessment and operations of process plants including oil & gas terminals.
Mustapha is currently the Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of Linetrale Petroleum. A highly regarded, independent indigenous company, specialised in oil and gas supply and trading activities in Nigeria and West Africa. Linetrale has been a pioneer in its industry since it began its operations in April 2000.
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Loic Fraboulet, Senior Technical Sales Manager EMEA, Ingevity
Loic Fraboulet is working for Ingevity as a Senior Technical Sales Manager in the EMEA region. He has a chemical technical degree and 16 years’ experience in the road industry and in business development.
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James Gooder, Vice-President, Crude, Argus
James is responsible for crude oil business development at Argus. He has been with the company since 2004 and has performed several editorial roles, including editing European electricity and emissions market publications. From 2007-10, he was the editor of the daily Argus Crude report, managing a global team of reporters and developing new crude price assessments. Prior to joining Argus, James worked as a teacher, speechwriter and journalist.
He holds a bachelor’s degree in English and American literature from Manchester University and a master’s degree in international journalism from City University, London.
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Keyvan Hedvat, Editor, Bitumen, Argus
Keyvan joined Argus in June 2007 as part of the company’s European oil products team, reporting on naphtha, jetfuel and distillate markets before switching to coverage of the fuel oil market and subsequently vacuum gasoil. He has been reporting on European and African bitumen and asphalt markets since 2009, editing the Europe/Africa section of the weekly Argus Asphalt Report, and subsequently Argus Bitumen, and helping to develop and enhance the publication. Before joining Argus, Keyvan spent 10 years as a Senior Energy Correspondent with Reuters news agency in London before it was merged to form ThomsonReuters. At Reuters, Keyvan reported on physical and swaps markets for the full spectrum of oil products, and led a team of products reporters. He previously reported on the petrochemicals and oil products markets at the London office of Dow Jones.
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Giacomo Gellini, Partner and Managing Director, Gelcon
Giacomo Gellini is an entrepreneur who benefits from more than 70 years of family business experience on roads construction and asphalt production through Gellini Costruziuoni. Giacomo has worked in the bitumen industry in the US developing a cold mix asphalt called Modipatch — which was well received and opened the road to polymers modified cold mix asphalts — with the National Center for Asphalt Technologies (NCAT) in Auburn, Alabama, and with Dykes Paving in Atlanta, Georgia. Giacomo worked for a period in Romania before moving to Ghana to establish Gelcon, where he is a partner and managing director. The company was founded in 2013 and after more than a year installing plant and machinery, started full-time operations three years ago. Today the 220 t/hour asphalt plant is one of the biggest in the country. Gelcon is now one of the main participants in the hot mix asphalt business in Ghana. Giacomo has been a speaker at the World of Asphalt conference in Orlando, Florida, and at the Transportation Research Board in Washington DC where he focused on polymers, modified bitumen and cold in-place recycling. Giacomo has an engineering degree from Politecnico in Milan and an MBA from the Universita Bocconi in Milan.
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Jorge Jiménez López, Heavy Products Trader, Repsol Trading
After taking a degree in economics and an MBA at Eastern Michigan University in the US, he focused on international business before joining Repsol in 2003, working in Spain’s retail LPG sector. In 2010, he started working for Repsol Trading as a Crude and Heavy Products Operator, and from 2011 his key areas were Europe and Africa. He was initially in charge of VGO, SRFO, UCO and bitumen. In 2014, his main concern became bitumen as Repsol began exporting the product not only from its Asesa bitumen plant at Tarragona, but also from its other refineries in Spain — Cartagena, Coruna, Bilbao and Puertollano.
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George N Omange, Former Consultant, Nigerian Building and Road Research Institute (NBRRI)
George N Omange has been Nigeria’s representative at the African Road Transport Research Forum (ARTReF), an African sub-regional group for networking transport research activities, since 2014. He has also initiated the framework for a similar Nigerian body. George has over 35 years of experience as a Research Scientist/Officer at the Nigerian Building and Road Research Institute (NBRRI). He held a number of positions at the NBRRI, including Director of Road Research and later Director of Planning and Information Technology. Until recently, George was engaged as a Consultant (Research) at the NBRRI. George holds a bachelor’s degree in geology from the University of Ibadan, Nigeria, and a master’s degree in civil engineering from the University of Toronto, Canada.
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Mam Tut Wadda, Principal Transport Engineer, African Development Bank
Mam Tut Wadda is Principal Transport Engineer at the African Development Bank (AfDB) responsible for the bank’s transport portfolio in Ghana. She is part of the bank’s team responsible for PPP transactions in the bank’s infrastructure cities and urban development department. Mam Tut is a civil engineer with 17 years’ work experience in design, construction and management of complex, large-scale engineering projects and has worked with reputable international firms in design, construction and project management of infrastructure projects. She joined the AfDB’s Transport department in 2010, and has managed a number of bank-financed transactions in roads, aviation and port development across the African continent including in Tunisia, Rwanda, Burundi, Malawi, Mozambique, Zambia, Botswana, Namibia, Uganda, Ghana and Ivory Coast. Prior to joining the AfDB, Mam Tut worked as Project Manager with UK-based engineering consultancy Mott MacDonald in the UAE, designing and supervising transport, water and power projects in Abu Dhabi and Dubai. As a graduate engineer Mam Tut worked in her home country of Gambia as Project Engineer for Kuwaiti engineering consultancy UNETEC and later transferred to CSE — a leading construction company in the west African sub region — as Construction Manager. Mam Tut is fluent in French and English and has a double master’s degree in civil engineering and project management from the University of Leeds, UK.
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Mohammad Ghaffari, Commercial Manager , ACE Oil
Mohammad Ghaffari started working for Middle East’s largest bitumen supplier, Pasargad Oil Company, when it was established in 2003 having graduated in industrial engineering. He spent four years working at the Bandar Abbas oil refinery, before transferring to Pasargad Oil’s central office as the Head of Engineering Sales and Marketing. Ghaffari is currently Commercial Manager at ACE Oil, the fourth largest bitumen manufacturer and exporter in Iran. He also participated in the compilation of the asphalt and bitumen handbook of Iran.
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Euloge Dabire, Sales Manager, Groupe Kanazoe
L. Martin Euloge Dabire has been Senior Sales Manager at Société de Multiproduits et du Bitumes for more than nine years. He was responsible for the operationalisation at the company and also in charge of the sales development. He later headed up the sales administration, from 2009 to 2011. Under his leadership, Société de Multiproduits et du Bitumes’ sales of bitumen in Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger have grown considerably. He holds a Masters in Law Economy Management from Jean Moulin Lyon 3 University in France, in Strategic and Operational Management from the International Institute for Water and Environmental Engineering in Burkina Faso, in Economic policies – Analysis projects from the Cheikh Anta Diop University in Senegal.
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Rockson Kwesi Dogbegah, Executive Chairman, Berock Ventures
Rockson Kwesi Dogbegah is the Founder and Executive Chairman of Berock Ventures, one of Ghana’s biggest construction companies and employs almost 1,300 people. He is the Vice-President of the Chartered Institute of Building Africa, the interim Chairman of the African Union of Construction Managers, Chairman of the Construction Industry Development Forum for Ghana, and the construction sector Chairman of the Association of Ghana Industries. Dogbegah is a strong advocate for construction excellence in Africa. He is a chartered construction manager, a chartered environmentalist and a strategist. He is a fellow of the Chartered Institute of Building in the UK, fellow of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors in the UK, a fellow of the Ghana Institute of Construction and a fellow of the Institute of Directors, Ghana.
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Andrea Menetti, Sales Manager, Massenza
Andrea Menetti has been working at Shell Bitumen for 17 years, starting as product manager for PMB in Italy and then taking higher responsibilities in sales and marketing departments at European level. From 2008, he was Sales Manager of Massenza group. Previously, in 2004 he joined an Italian road construction company and asphalt mix manufacturer as research and development and new technologies manager. Andrea has a degree in chemistry from the University of Milan and working experience in other fields.
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| Edward Blankson-Mills, Zonal Head, Retail Banking, Access Bank Ghana |