Tema Oil Refinery is set to refine about 25,000 barrel of crude oil per day as the state refinery resumes operations after almost 10 months of shutdown due to maintenance.

The Public Affairs Manager of TOR, Dr Kinsgley Antwi-Boasiako said the development is a good start for the refinery.

Speaking to JoyBusiness, he said, “At exactly 9:00 am today, we started receiving refined products into our storage tank after we had refined the crude that we had. So like you rightly said we are coming from a major turnaround maintenance, in fact, we call it, a complete overhaul. 

Dr. Antwi-Boasiako said, “Currently the plant as it sits there is as good as new because we’ve spent so much time and resources on maintaining it. So today, fortunately, we brought it to an end and we started the refining process.” 

“We call it, the test run processing, we are set to process about 942,000 barrels of crude and that will probably take 40 days to finish. Currently, because we are operating with just one furnace we are operating with a technical maximum capacity of 25,000 per stream day,” he said.

Dr Antwi-Boasiako said currently it is the Crude Distillation Unit that is working fully and that the refinery is working hard to get the Residual Fluid Catalytic Cracker (RSCC) to start working soon.

“Currently it is the Crude Distillation nit that is working, we’re still working on the residual fluid catalytic cracker (RSCC) and we are hoping the RSCC will be back on stream very soon.”

Total shutdown

Last year, The Chamber of Petroleum Consumers (CPC) called for a complete “shutdown” of the Tema Oil Refinery (TOR) if it is not fit for purpose.

Executive Director of CPC, Duncan Amoah, said the inability of the refinery to operate at full capacity for years, is costing the country a lot of money.

Speaking to Joy News Monday he said the refinery should be closed down and the 3.00 pesewas charged for every litre of petrol purchased should be scrapped. 

“I believe strongly that if the refinery is not going to be repositioned to work, it should be shut down,” he said.

Ghana’s main oil refinery has been reeling under challenges, energy experts have blamed on poor management