Government has reiterated plans to make the Tema Oil Refinery (TOR) one of the premium refineries in the West Africa sub-region.
The Energy minister has intimated that Akufo-Addo-led government will offer support to TOR in the form of strategic partnership with the aim of making the refinery operate at its fullest potentials.
TOR, established in 1963 is Ghana’s only refinery, which refines crude oil into various petroleum products including Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG), gasoline (petrol), kerosene, gas oil (diesel), aviation turban kerosene, and premix among others. However, TOR, for over a decade now, has been debt ridden and operational inefficiency forcing past governments to consider releasing it to private entity.
“TOR would not be disintegrated or go through divestiture under the current government as it remained a very important asset on the list of the Energy Ministry”, Dr Mathew Opoku Prempeh, Energy Minister, has unveiled. “To achieve its aims, workers and management of TOR must work together in unity to turn the fortunes of the refinery around.”
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He noted, the Ministry would ensure that regulations by the National Petroleum Authority (NPA) did not adversely affect the refinery but rather assisted it to achieve its set goals and objectives.
But, the Director of Project, Monitoring and Evaluation at the National Petroleum Authority (NPA), Sheila Addo, has stated that the major issue facing the Tema Oil Refinery (TOR) in terms of operations is the subject of funding.
Speaking at the 2021 Ghana International Petroleum Conference (GhIPCON), fortnight ago, said the operators of TOR have come up with a plan to restructure the refinery but their challenge has to do with funding.
“I think the operators of TOR have done a thorough diagnosis of the refinery and they have come up with a plan to restructure the refinery, the challenge is financing, it is not a lack of tools or resources. The main resources that TOR is lacking are the financing and so it becomes a policy decision on how to get the financing to move towards where we all want TOR to be,” she said.
Meanwhile, she also said it is very important for the continent to collaborate and come up with strategies that will make it a vibrant Oil producer.
Meanwhile, Managing Director of the state Refinery, Francis A. T. Boateng has assured that, the completion and commission of the second furnace of the refinery which exploded in January 2017 would return TOR to its original capacity of 45,000 barrels per stream day which will double its revenue generation potential.
By Adnan Adams Mohammed
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