'Ghana can't produce crude oil and not have a refinery' – Energy Expert

Senior Technical Consultant to The Chamber of Petroleum Consumers Ghana (COPEC), Dr Suleman Yusif has said the practice where the country produces crude oil yet imports finished products, is flawed.

Dr Yusif has, therefore, called for a refinery to be set up in the country to enable the conversion of crude into finished products.

Speaking in an interview with Class News on Monday, 19 October 2020, Dr Yusif urged the government to consider the best practices of countries leading in crude oil and apply it to the country’s energy sector.

“What I advice is that they should look at the best practices elsewhere. What is being done elsewhere where refineries do run. In fact, Ghana, we need a refinery. We can’t produce crude oil and we don’t have a refinery. We export crude oil and yet we import finished products.

“This is fundamentally so flawed. That is fundamentally so bad on our part. How do we have to export crude oil and end up bringing in finished products? Yet we have oil refinery, yet we have opportunities to build more refineries. That is what we need to do,” Dr Yusif noted.

He further called on the leading political parties to inculcate into their manifestos policies that will ensure the achievement of energy security in the country.

Dr Yusif said: “I wouldn’t say the harm has been done, they’re still going into elections. So once they still listen to experts and the advice they give, if they care to put them into practice, it is doable. It is not that it is something that cannot be changed. I’m not saying that they do not have excellent policies but I feel that those policies are not aggregated enough to ensure that we achieve energy security.

“Those policies have to be aggregated in unison where upstream is closely linked to downstream. For instance, throughout the manifesto, I’ve not seen a clear link between the upstream and downstream and that’s so unfortunate.”