Ghana to build second oil refinery

Ghana plans to build a second oil refinery close to the current Tema Oil Refinery (TOR), president John Dramani Mahama said. According to him, the proposed 100 000 barrel per stream day (bpsd) is based on the vision to make Ghana the hub of downstream petroleum in West Africa.

TOR, Ghana’s only refinery, is state−owned and has a 60 000 bpsd capacity, which meets only 50 percent of the country’s daily consumption. The refinery has been debt−ridden over the past 10 years, which as at the end of 2015 totaled 1,9 billion Ghana cedis or 498,03 million US dollars.

Successive governments have slapped a TOR debt recovery levy on petroleum products in a bid to redeem the debt which keeps ballooning. This debt, according to the president, is soon to be converted into bonds to be listed on the Ghana Stock Exchange (GSE).

“We are going to refurbish your storage tanks and expand the amount of petroleum products that we can produce and store. We will ramp up this refinery to its maximum of 60 000 bpsd, and then we will start the planning of a new 100 000 bpsd per day refinery,” the president told workers of TOR while touring the facility.

Mahama assured workers that government would not be complacent, but would ensure that the right things continued to be done to consolidate the turnaround.

The Tema Oil Refinery is the premier and only refinery in Ghana. The refinery was among the first eight refineries in Africa as at 1963. The refinery is situated in Tema about 24 kilometers east of the capital, Accra. It was originally named the Ghanaian Italian Petroleum (GHAIP) Company and incorporated as a Private Limited Liability Company under the Companies Ordinance (Cap 193) on December 12, 1960.

It was 100 percent owned by the ENI Group of Italy. The Government of Ghana bought all the shares of GHAIP in April 1977 and became sole shareholder. In 1990 the name was changed to the Tema Oil Refinery (TOR).