Page 8 - DMEA Week 16 2021
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DMEA REFINING DMEA
Image source:
Ghana EPA
New Tema refinery
to be denied permit
AFRICA GHANA’S Environmental Protection Agency existing refinery, the struggling Tema Oil Refin-
(EPA) this week said that a proposed new refin- ery (TOR).
ing project at Tema is unlikely to be built owing In March, Ghanaian Energy Minister Mat-
to environmental concerns. The proposed site thew Opoku Prempeh said the 45,000 bpd facil-
of the Sentuo Oil Refinery is in the Tema New- ity was “not in a healthy state”, referring to efforts
town Waterland, a wetland catchment of Chemu to bring it back to capacity following an explo-
Lagoon. sion at its distillation unit in early 2017.
Sentuo’s request for a permit was submitted in He said that Accra has no intention of scrap-
December 2019 as part of plans to create a plant ping the facility; instead it would call on private
with a sour crude processing capacity of 30,000- sector support in turning TOR into one of the
60,000 barrels per day (bpd). best refineries in West Africa.
The chosen plot covers an area of 217 acres However, he sought to assuage any concerns,
(87.8 hectares) which has been leased for a noting that inviting private sector participation
period of 60 years. “does not mean [the president] wants the pub-
According to correspondence between the lic sector to collapse. TOR is a strategic national
company and the Electricity Company of Ghana, asset … we will make sure it goes from strength
Sentuo had requested the relocation of two elec- to strength”, Prempeh added.
tricity pylons and was due to pay $190,000 for The 56-year-old facility near Accra has been
the work. operating at less than half of its nameplate capac-
The EPA has identified the area as a wetland ity over the past four years. TOR went offline in
and a buffer zone for flooding, adding that the July 2020 having run out of crude reserves, only
area is too close to Tema Newtown and would coming back into operation in January this year
add to existing congestion. before being shut down again a month later.
As a result, the EPA’s executive director Henry Prempeh said: “We want to see TOR export-
Kokofu told local media outlet Citi News: “We ing crude from Ghana that has been refined”,
found [the project] not to be compatible with adding that refining crude domestically is
the location. Even though we are yet to com- “where the money is to be made”.
municate our findings … the possibility that we Later in March, a source was quoted by
will not grant it is quite high given the evidence S&P Global Platts as saying: “The refinery has
available to us.” resumed processing after days of some mainte-
Tema is the location of Ghana’s only nance to correct some few issues.”
P8 www. NEWSBASE .com Week 16 22•April•2021
