Page 9 - DMEA Week 06 2022

DMEA REFINING DMEA

Ghana seeks investment

for Tema refinery repairs

AFRICA THE Ghanaian government is seeking strategic to begin.
partners willing to provide the capital required Frustrations surfaced later in the year, with
to rehabilitate the dilapidated state-owned Tema local outlet Modern Ghana reporting in August
Oil Refinery (TOR). that refinery staff had “recently locked up some
Minister for Public Enterprises Joshua Cud- management staff.”
joe made the announcement while speaking to Meanwhile, state utility ECG said in Decem-
local media outlet Joy News, saying that inves- ber that it had cut electricity supplies to TOR fol-
tors in the facility would be expected to provide lowing the facility’s failure to pay $4.3mn of debt.
funds for the extensive repair work needed to “We’ve pursued [TOR] for some time to pay
overhaul the plant. the bill, but unfortunately, all our [efforts were]
“Given the revenue constraints that the state not yielding, so we were compelled to cut the
has at the moment and capitalisation of TOR to lines,” according to the leader of a taskforce set
enable it to turn around, the Finance Minister up to recover the missing payment.
Ken Ofori Atta would let you know, and I sup- He added that ECG would restore power
port that we won’t use tax money to go and fix only if the state refinery paid at least 30% of the
it,” he said. debt. However, Joy News reported that TOR had
The 45,000 barrel per day (bpd) facility has expressed surprise over ECG’s actions.
been plagued by issues, since early 2017, when The two companies held talks in ECG’s Accra
an explosion occurred at its distillation unit. The offices regarding the repayment of debt, with Joy
plant was then closed completely between July News quoting sources as saying that the parties
2020 and January 2021. had agreed on a plan that would see payments
Its crude distillation and fluid catalytic crack- starting at $81,000 per month in December and
ing units have experienced outages, while only then rising once TOR’s operations ramped up in
one of the CDU’s furnaces is currently opera- 2022.
tional. As a result, the 56-year-old facility has an The latest figures from Ghana’s Finance
effective throughput capacity of only 30,000 bpd. Ministry show that the country’s state-owned
Reports in May 2021 suggested that the refin- enterprises operated at a total loss of GHS5bn
ery had depleted all of its feedstock, with oper- ($795mn) in 2020, with TOR included in this
ations halted for maintenance and repair works figure.™

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