Page 11 - DMEA Week 18 2022

DMEA REFINING DMEA

Ghana intensifying efforts

to rehabilitate Tema refinery

AFRICA GHANAIAN President Nana Akufo-Addo pro- be commissioned before the end of the year,” he
vided an update on efforts to repair and reinstate said, stressing the importance of private sector
capacity at the country’s sole refinery at Tema. involvement in the downstream.
In a speech to mark Labour Day celebra- According to the original project proposal,
tions, Akufo-Addo said: “Intense efforts are Sentuo Oil Refinery Ltd intends to build a 60,000
being made to rehabilitate the Tema Oil Refin- bpd refinery – also known as Tema III – at Tema
ery [TOR], to enable it contribute to stabilising Newtown, a wetland catchment of Chemu
petroleum prices, which should see the light of Lagoon.
day very soon.” The Sentuo project company’s request for a
The 45,000 barrel per day (bpd) facility has permit was submitted in December 2019 as part
been plagued by issues since an explosion at its of plans to create a plant to process light, sour
distillation unit in early 2017 and was closed crude over two identical phases, each with a pro-
completely between July 2020 and January 2021. cessing capacity of 30,000 bpd.
Outages have been experienced at the crude dis- The $796mn first phase will produce 464,500
tillation and fluid catalytic cracking units, while tonnes per year of gasoline, 481,800 tpy of diesel
only one of the CDU’s furnaces is currently oper- and other productions including LPG, benzene,
ational, giving the 56-year-old facility an effec- aromatics, xylene, toluene, sulphuric acid, bitu-
tive throughput capacity of 30,000 bpd. men and fuel oil.
Reports in May 2021 suggested that the refin- This will comprise a 10,000 bpd atmospheric
ery had depleted all of its feedstock, with oper- distillation unit, a 16,000 bpd heavy oil catalytic
ations halted for maintenance and repair works unit, a 4,600 bpd diesel hydrogenation unit and
to begin. facilities for naphtha-methanol-to-gasoline
Earlier this year, Minister for Public Enter- (NMTG), catalytic gasoline selective hydro-
prises Joshua Cudjoe said the government was genation and sulphur recovery. The chosen plot
seeking strategic partners willing to provide covers an area of 217 acres (87.8 hectares) that
the capital required to rehabilitate TOR, which has been leased for a period of 60 years.
requires extensive repair work. However, after screening the project and car-
“Given the revenue constraints that the state rying out site inspections, Ghana’s Environmen-
has at the moment and capitalisation of TOR to tal Protection Agency (EPA) said in April last
enable it to turn around, the Finance Minister, year that the area has been identified as a wetland
Ken Ofori Atta, would let you know and I sup- and a buffer zone for flooding, adding that the
port that we won’t use tax money to go and fix area is too close to Tema Newtown and would
it,” he said. add to existing congestion.
Meanwhile, Akufo-Addo suggested that a Concerns about the site and other issues out-
new refinery would soon be launched, presum- lined in its environmental impact assessment
ably in reference to the Sentuo Oil Refinery, to be (EIA) were again raised by the EPA in Janu-
located near TOR. ary, when acting director of petroleum Kojo
“We are also encouraging private compa- Agbenor-Efunam dramatically likened the loca-
nies to establish refineries in the country, one tion near a residential area to “placing a bomb
of which is 80% complete, and it’s expected to very close to people”.™

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