Page 10 - AfrOil Week 12 2021

AfrOil PERFORMANCE AfrOil

He also indicated that NNPC’s interest in the However, he said, work on this front pro-
northern basins had been sparked by the discov- ceeded slowly and had to be suspended in
ery of oil in several countries adjacent to Nigeria. 2014 in light of an insurgency in north-eastern
“Our sustained quest is informed by the matured Nigeria.
geological and geophysical evaluations and the Conditions have improved since then, and
practical discoveries of commercial quantities of Buhari’s mandate has lent momentum to explo-
hydrocarbons in neighbouring Niger, Chad and ration in the northern states, Kyari noted. He
Central Africa Republic,” he explained. acknowledged, though, that many international
After conducting a review of the data accu- oil companies (IOCs) were more interested in
mulated over a period of decades, he added, deepwater offshore blocks than inland sites, as
the company began exploring the possibility of the former posed fewer challenges with respect
exploring the Chad and Gongola basins, as well to security and relations with local communi-
as the Benue Trough, in 2009. ties. ™

POLICY
Ghana’s energy minister pledges

support for struggling Tema refinery

GHANA GHANA’S Energy Minister recently pledged to Despite efforts to upgrade and add to down-
support the country’s struggling Tema Oil Refin- stream capacity, the government’s record in
ery (TOR) and gave a unifying call to workers. securing private investment in the refining
Visiting the 45,000 barrel per day (bpd) facil- sector is poor. An agreement under discussion
ity, Matthew Opoku Prempeh said “TOR is not in 2014 with little-known Riyadh-based Pet-
in a healthy state.” He was referring to efforts to roSaudi that called for the company to take a
bring it back to capacity following an explosion strategic stake in TOR and invest in the plant’s
at its distillation unit in early 2017. upgrade and expansion likewise collapsed.
The minister said that Accra had no inten- PetroSaudi had no experience in the sec-
tion of scrapping the facility; instead, he said, tor and has recently attracted attention for its
it will call on the private sector for support in involvement in Malaysia’s multi-billion dollar
turning TOR into one of the best refineries in 1MDB corruption scandal. ™
West Africa.
“We want to see TOR exporting crude from
Ghana that has been refined,” he said, adding
that refining crude domestically is “where the
money is to be made.”
The failure of previous efforts to reinvigorate
the unit offers little comfort, but a distinct lack
of competition in the region makes it a possi-
bility. Even so, Prempeh sought to assuage any
concerns, noting that inviting private sector par-
ticipation “does not mean [the president] wants
the public sector to collapse. TOR is a strategic
national asset ... we will make sure it goes from
strength to strength,” he added.
The 56-year-old facility near Accra has
been operating at less than half of its nameplate
capacity over the past four years. Ghana’s previ-
ous administration regularly blamed the refin-
ery’s dilapidation on its predecessors, under
which three cycles of turnaround maintenance
had been missed.
Ghana National Petroleum Corp.’s (GNPC)
financial condition is contributing to and com-
pounding TOR’s operational deficiencies. The
state firm remains heavily indebted and in June
2018 was forced to shut down owing to its ina-
bility to finance crude imports. The Tema refinery has been operating at less than 50% of capacity (Photo: TOR)

P10 www. NEWSBASE .com Week 12 24•March•2021