From selling of shirts, watches to owning Oil & Gas Company, the story of Ethel Laurel Akafful

Ethel Laurel Akafful, a 27-year-old hardworking Ghanaian lady has gone from the sales of items such as wristwatches and men’s shirts to owning her Oil & Gas Company.

Businessworldghana.com reports that Laurel was also a teacher at a point in time.

Reports indicate that throughout the times that the brilliant lady engaged in all her entrepreneurial activities, she always harboured the desire of going into engineering.

Ethel Laurel Akafful now engages in the Oil & Gas business called Laurel Gas Resources with an MSc in Petroleum Geoscience.

She started upon completion of her first degree in 2018 although the idea was nurtured in 2017.

Speaking about how the desire started, Laurel indicated that the journey began since she was born at Abomosu in the Eastern Region of Ghana with her mom working as a petty trader and her dad, a farmer who also dealt in gold and diamond.

When it rained heavily, we would go to the gullies and pick pieces of gold and put them in a mercury container. After some time, we got bigger sizes and sold to my dad,” said Akafful.

The engineering passion in Laurel came to light even when she was about to enter into the university.

In her own words: "When it was time for university, I chose only engineering courses. I just wanted to be an engineer. I thought that if I do engineering I could work as someone who mines gold but I was offered earth science”.

Speaking about the venture she founded, the young lady explains that Laurel Gas Resources is a clean energy distribution company that uses technology to promote the broad and safer use of Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) in Ghana.

Laurel Gas Resources focuses on remedying three major anomalies in the system: safety, accessibility and convenience. The venture eliminates problems that come with the purchase of LPG by the general public.

Most people handle the heavy cylinders in manners that make the entire process very dangerous.

"We buy the gas on your behalf and we transport it conveniently and safely,” Akafful said in an interview with Business World Ghana.

That is not all. The company offers free advice on what to do when any faults are detected, checks the position of clients' cylinders, checks regulators, valves, and the like just to make sure that the process is extremely safe and efficient.

Ghanaian ladies have been in the news for amazing achievements lately.