TOR assures public of uninterrupted fuel supply

Tema, May 22, GNA - Management of Tema Oil Refinery (TOR) on Tuesday assured the public of uninterrupted fuel supply to the system.

Briefing newsmen at the refinery the Managing Director, Dr Kofi Kodua Sarpong, said contrary to speculations of shortage of diesel, "the refinery's production has been good", as the refinery is producing about 90 percent of the capacity in both the Crude Distillation Unit (CDU) and the Residue Fluid Catalytic Cracking Unit (RFCC).

He therefore allayed the fears of shortage any of TOR's products. He said besides gas oil needed to run generating plants, sufficient arrangements have been made with the National Petroleum Authority (NPA) to import additional refined products for domestic consumption.

The relevant institutions have made separate arrangements to import gas oil/fuels needed to run the power plants while TOR and the Bulk Oil Storage and Transport Company (BOST) have made available facilities to handle the additional import of gas oil. Dr Sarpong said mindful of the key events of 2007 like the Golden Jubilee celebrations, African Union Summit and Religious festivals/holidays has planned effectively to avert shortage of any product.

He said the load shedding exercise occasionally affected the loading programme as the loading gantry temporary shuts down, coupled with limited weekend transfers to loading points outside the main refinery.

TOR, he said, has put in measures to address the hindrances and mentioned some as the extension of its working period from 10 hours to 14 hours in addition to the Saturday loading that has been institutionalized.

A special programme has also been put in place to supply high demand service stations with regular supply of products while regular supply of products to Takoradi depots using marine vessels has been arranged. BOST, Dr Sarpong, said has also added two new bays for loading of diesel and gasoline that would be commissioned soon. In the medium term, there is the expansion of the gantry facilities to ensure internal generation of all electricity requirements of the refinery while efforts are made to address intermittent distribution constraints to ensure adequate supply of products.