TOR resumes operations after third closure this year

Tema Oil Refinery (TOR), Ghana’s only crude-processing facility, restarted after it secured funds for Nigerian crude, General Transport, Petroleum and Chemical Workers Union Chairman Emmanuel Offoh said.

The state-owned refinery “resumed operations on Oct. 15 after management secured some letters of credit and bought a consignment of 600,000 barrels of crude from Nigeria,” Offoh said by phone today from Tema, 30 kilometers (19 miles) east of Accra, the capital. “At current production of 28,000 barrels a day, we can continue to refine for three weeks,” he said.


The 45,000 barrel-a-day facility has closed three times since reopening in April. The plant has struggled since 2009 to replace aging machinery and to get financing, tightening supplies of fuel in West Africa’s second-largest economy. Ghana imports most of its fuel.

The refinery is looking for private investors as “government alone cannot finance the refinery’s activities, Managing Director Ato Ampiah said on Oct. 3. Ampiah and Aba Lokko, the company’s corporate and public affairs manager didn’t immediately respond to a call and e-mail seeking comment.