Ghana’s premier refinery, Tema Oil Refinery (TOR), which has been struggling to stand on its feet due to poor leadership, is losing key workers whose hopes of seeing the refinery get a strategic partner hang in the balance.
The 45,000 barrels of oil per stream day capacity refinery, established in 1963 under the first president of the Republic of Ghana, is on the verge of collapse as it is saddled with so much indebtedness to both private and public institutions.
Deep throat sources within the refinery have told energynewsafrica.com that about ten engineers at the Crude Distillation Unit (CDU) and Residual Fluid Catalytic Cracker (RFCC) recently resigned to UAE to work in the country’s oil industry.
According to energynewsafrica.com’s sources, seven other staff have also tendered their resignation letters and are expected to quit at the end of October this year.
This will bring a total of seventeen key staff exiting the refinery in less than three months.
Currently, the refinery is not processing crude even though it recently completed the installation of furnace.
What the refinery does is rent out its storage tanks to bulk oil importers to keep their products at a fee.
Sadly, even with this arrangement, the refinery, sometimes, is unable to account for the total volumes of products stored in its tank, thereby, incurring losses.
Many energy analysts have shared opinions on how a functioning TOR would have helped in stabilising the rising cost of fuel in the West African nation.
With the exchange rate biting hard on petroleum products, these analysts believe that if TOR were processing crude oil, it would reduce the volumes of fuel imported into the country.
A good number of the staff of the refinery appears to be throwing their hands in despair.
They have pushed successive governments to recapitalise the refinery and put structures in place to make it viable but their wish is yet to see the light of day.
Attempts by the Energy Minister, Dr. Matthew Opoku Prempeh, to ensure that the refinery is rid of bad guys hit a snag as persons who were interdicted for their alleged involvement in product losses and financial malfeasance by a three-member Interim Management Committee (ICM) managed the refinery between June and October 2021 have all been cleared of no wrong-doing and returned to work.
When contacted about the situation in TOR, the National Chairman of Ghana Petroleum and Chemical Workers Union, Bernard Owusu, said he had heard about the resignation of some engineers at the refinery.
He said the union was concerned and is planning to meet the Minister for Energy to discuss the way forward of the refinery.
Source: https://energynewsafrica.com
