Page 8 - DMEA Week 21 2021

DMEA REFINING DMEA

TOR refutes claims of near collapse

AFRICA THE management of Ghana’s Tema Oil Refin- During a visit to the facility in March, Ghana-
ery (TOR) this week refuted reports that Ghana ian Energy Minister Matthew Opoku Prempeh
Water Co. had cut water supplies to the 45,000 said that Accra has no intention of scrapping
barrel per day (bpd) facility because of its inabil- the facility. Instead, he said private sector sup-
ity to pay debts of $690,000. port would be sought to help turn it into one of
In a statement TOR said: “We wish to refute the best refineries in West Africa, but noted this
what is recently being circulated in the media to “does not mean [the president] wants the pub-
suggest that TOR is on the verge of shutdown. lic sector to collapse. TOR is a strategic national
Such publications from anonymous sources asset … we will make sure it goes from strength
create an unwarranted negative impression of to strength”.
the organisation and hinder the progress of our The 56-year-old facility near Accra has been
revitalisation and expansion plans as well as the operating at less than half of its nameplate capac-
business operations at large.” ity over the past four years. Prempeh added: “We
It added: “TOR is not on the verge of shut- want to see TOR exporting crude from Ghana
down but has rather been positioned for its effec- that has been refined”, adding that refining crude
tive turnaround and revitalisation through the domestically is “where the money is to be made”.
support of its shareholder”, with several potential Ghana’s previous administration regularly
investors having expressed interest in partnering blamed the dilapidation on its predecessors,
with TOR or providing funding for its revamp under which three cycles of turnaround main-
and expansion. tenance had been missed.
Meanwhile, S&P Global Platts reported Ghana National Petroleum Corp.’s (GNPC)
this week that the refinery had halted all oper- financial condition is contributing to and com-
ations in recent weeks for maintenance and pounding TOR’s operational deficiencies. The
repair works having processed all of its available state firm remains heavily indebted and in June
feedstock. 2018 was forced to shut down owing to its inabil-
A source said: “The refinery is currently ity to finance crude imports.
down. We exhausted the crude oil we had and Despite efforts to upgrade and add to down-
we are yet to receive any new crude oil cargo.” stream capacity, the government’s record in
The source added: “In the meantime, the mainte- securing private investment in the refining sec-
nance outfit of the company is taking advantage tor is poor.
of the situation to carry out [a] few repair works.” An agreement under discussion in 2014
TOR has been plagued by issues since an with little-known Riyadh-based PetroSaudi that
explosion at its distillation unit in early 2017 and called for the company to take a strategic stake
only resumed operations in January following a in TOR and invest in the plant’s upgrade and
six-month closure. Outages have been experi- expansion likewise collapsed.
enced at the crude distillation and fluid catalytic PetroSaudi had no experience in the sec-
cracking units, while only one of the CDU’s fur- tor and has recently attracted attention for its
naces is currently operational, giving an effective involvement in Malaysia’s multi-billion dollar
throughput capacity of 30,000 bpd. 1MDB corruption scandal.™

P8 www. NEWSBASE .com Week 21 27•May•2021