The Tema Oil Refinery (TOR) begun partial operation of the processing of crude oil in December 2014.
The state owned oil refinery has been redundant for some years now; a situation both workers and industry analyst described as worrying.
[contextly_sidebar id=”svV2aB1t4MNffzQD8O6eObKpw88zFTLK”]But Citi News checks at the refinery indicate that management of TOR have managed to strike a deal with Sahara Energy Resource to supply it with crude oil for processing.
The refinery is reported to have taken delivery of 350,000 barrels of crude oil.
According to management of the refinery, adequate marketing plans have been structured to ensure sale of its products.
Speaking to Citi News, Union Chairman at TOR was optimistic the company will resume operations despite shutting the plant down for long adding “We want to take a step at a time because it has been down for a long time. I must admit that the plant going down for a long time will have challenges but technicians are on it and we are looking at how best we can come back into full operation.”
Meanwhile, Energy Think-tank, African Centre for Energy Policy (ACEP) has welcomed the resumption of TOR.
Speaking to Citi News on the development Director of Operations at ACEP, Benjamin Boakye welcomed the decision saying “consistently they themselves have said that they were ready to process any light crude oil but the challenge was financing” which has been sorted.
My Boakye however cautioned management of TOR not to allow government to owe them.
“What we would advise is that TOR needs to prove itself and demand for payment when they process and sell the products to the market so that government does not accumulate debt like they’ve done before. So I think this is good news but they have to go in a different direction to make sure that nobody owes them in their operations,” he said adding that “I only hope that they will they will be able to manage things on their own to justify why we have always argue for TOR to be operationalized.”
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By: Godwin Allotey Akweiteh & Magdalene Larnyoh/citifmonline.com/Ghana