Page 9 - DMEA Week 02 2023

DMEA REFINING DMEA

Ghana’s TOR expected

back online next month

AFRICA GHANA’S sole oil processing unit, the embattled development that will achieve a total capacity of
Tema Oil Refinery (TOR), is expected to resume 60,000 bpd.
operations by the end of February following The Sentuo project company’s request for a
extensive repair work. permit was submitted in December 2019 as part
Speaking on local radio last week, Deputy of plans to create a plant to process light, sour
Energy Minister Andrew Egyapa Mercer said crude over two identical phases, each with a pro-
that the government is finalising all necessary cessing capacity of 30,000 bpd.
requirements to ensure the facility can operate The $796mn first phase will produce 464,500
smoothly. tonnes per year of gasoline, 481,800 tpy of diesel
“The expectation of management, at the last and other productions including LPG, benzene,
meeting that we held at the office of his Excel- aromatics, xylene, toluene, sulphuric acid, bitu-
lency the President, was that by the end of Feb- men and fuel oil.
ruary, they expect that they would start refining This will comprise a 10,000 bpd atmospheric
products at TOR,” he told JoyNews. distillation unit, a 16,000 bpd heavy oil catalytic
The 45,000 barrel per day (bpd) facility has unit, a 4,600 bpd diesel hydrogenation unit and
been plagued by issues since an explosion at its facilities for naphtha-methanol-to-gasoline
distillation unit in early 2017 and was closed (NMTG), catalytic gasoline selective hydro-
completely between July 2020 and January 2021. genation and sulphur recovery. The chosen plot
Outages have been experienced at the crude dis- covers an area of 217 acres (87.8 hectares) that
tillation and fluid catalytic cracking units, while has been leased for a period of 60 years.
only one of the CDU’s furnaces is currently oper- However, after screening the project and car-
ational, giving the 56-year-old facility an effec- rying out site inspections, Ghana’s Environmen-
tive throughput capacity of 30,000 bpd. tal Protection Agency (EPA) said in April 2021
Reports in May 2021 suggested that the refin- that the area has been identified as a wetland and
ery had depleted all of its feedstock, with oper- a buffer zone for flooding, adding that the area is
ations halted for maintenance and repair works too close to Tema Newtown and would add to
to begin. existing congestion.
In mid-2022, Minister for Public Enterprises
Joshua Cudjoe said the government was seeking Fuel for gold
strategic partners willing to provide the capital While Ghana waits for refining to return, Mercer
required to rehabilitate TOR which requires said Ghana would receive its first shipments of
extensive repair work. refined products from the UAE on January 10
Meanwhile, Ghanian industry sources have and 12 under their gold-for-oil programme.
indicated in recent weeks that the planned He added that various governmental and
30,000-40,000 bpd Sentuo Oil Refinery could corporate arrangements have been made with
also become operational within the next few entities that expressed an interest in gold-for-oil
months. barter. “In fact, all the necessary agreements that
Located near TOR in Tema Newtown, a wet- needed to be executed have been executed. A lot
land catchment of Chemu Lagoon, the original more interest has been shown by other oil trad-
proposal for the project envisages a two-stage ers.” he said.™

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