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AfrOil POLICY AfrOil
“We need to be mindful that the future of our investors abroad to invest here in Ghana by
industry is uncertain. We are working so hard to building refineries,” he said.
reposition our country to maximise the benefits Currently, Ghana’s refining capabilities are
of our oil and gas resources. We are convinced limited to the 45,000 barrel per day (bpd) Tema
that we will continue to produce oil but not Oil Refinery (TOR). The plant has not operated
hurt the environment, I urge you to talk to your at full capacity for more than four years.
Electricity Company of Ghana cuts power
to Tema Oil Refinery over $4.3mn debt
GHANA THE Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG), toward mid-2022.
through a task force, has cut electricity supply to Nevertheless, ECG’s office at Tema cut power
the Tema Oil Refinery (TOR) over failure to pay to the oil-processing plant.
its GHS27mn ($4.3mn) debt, Joy News reported Subsequently, Joy Business sources said that
earlier this week. TOR hoped to engage ECG for the purpose of
The power distributor says it is working to restoring power supplies to the refinery.
retrieve all debts and will not accept any excuses. The facility has been plagued by issues since
It explained the decision to disconnect the refin- an explosion at its distillation unit in early 2017
ery by noting that TOR had been racking up and only resumed operations in January fol-
arrears without making sufficient effort to settle lowing a six-month closure. Outages have been
its account. experienced at the crude distillation and fluid
“We’ve pursued them for some time to pay catalytic cracking units, while only one of the
the bill, but unfortunately, all our [efforts bore CDU’s furnaces is currently operational, giving
no fruit], so we were compelled to cut the lines,” the 56-year-old facility an effective throughput
said Shadrack, the leader of the task force. capacity of 30,000 bpd.
He added that ECG would restore power In May, however, S&P Global Platts quoted
only if the state refinery pays at least 30% of the sources as saying that the refinery had depleted
its total debt. all of its feedstock and had halted operations to
Meanwhile, Joy News has reported that TOR wait for maintenance and repair works to begin.
expressed surprise at ECG’s actions. The refinery “The refinery is currently down,” the source
operator said it had been holding meetings with said at the time. “We exhausted the crude oil we
ECG at the latter company’s Accra headquarters had and we are yet to receive any new crude oil
regarding payment, and Joy Business sources say cargo. In the meantime, the maintenance outfit
that the two sides struck an agreement there on of the company is taking advantage of the situa-
payment via a monthly instalment package of tion to carry out some few repair works.”
GHS500,000 ($81,000) was agreed. They were Frustrations have boiled over in recent
supposed to start implementing the deal this months with local outlet Modern Ghana report-
month, the sources said, with the size of the pay- ing in August that refinery staff had “recently
ments increasing as TOR’s operations improved locked up some management staff.”
The Tema Oil refinery has a design capacity of 45,000 bpd (Photo: TOR)
P8 www. NEWSBASE .com Week 49 08•December•2021
