Tema Oil Refinery Opens After 12-Day Closure

The Tema Oil Refinery, Ghana's lone crude processor, resumed production yesterday after a pumping error caused a 12-day shutdown, an official said

Salt water was mistakenly channelled into some parts of state-owned plant, Managing Director Ato Ampiah said in a phone interview today.

The refinery has been closed several times over the past year, including for most of 2009, for lengthy maintenance works and a shortage of crude supplies that led to lines at filling stations in the capital city, Accra, which is about 30 kilometers (18.6 miles) west of the Tema facility.

A plan to increase processing to 120,000 barrels a day, from the current 45,000 barrels, will be completed by "about 2013 or 2014," said Ampiah, who was named to head the plant in May.

Ghana is set to become Africa's newest crude oil exporter when production at the offshore Jubilee oil field begins by the end of this year, Ato Ahwoi, chairman of the Ghana National Petroleum Corp., said Aug. 25.