Revamp TOR to Reduce Petroleum Imports – IES

The Institute of Energy Security (IES) has urged government to work to revamp the Tema Oil Refinery (TOR) in order to reduce the country’s over dependence on imported fuel.

The IES argues that the development has dire implications should there be threats of cuts in supply.

The comments come on the back of shortage of fuel in Nigeria for at least three weeks now.

But the Executive Director of IES, Paa Kwesi Anamua Sakyi tells Citi Business News revamping the Tema Oil Refinery should be paramount in saving Ghana from a similar fate going forward.

“Lessons that Ghana can draw from this is when all your fuel consumption is dependent on imports, it becomes quite dangerous for you especially when importers or suppliers of these products have a challenge with the government, they might choose not to bring in the products and so it becomes a problem.”

“So we should make our Tema Oil Refinery work because it is a strategic asset that we have we can’t depend on just oil imports. The whole of 2017, all the oil that we have been consuming, came from oil imports so we should ensure that TOR works as soon as possible,” he again claimed.

Already, the Finance Minister, Ken Ofori Atta has disclosed that government is seeking to revive operations at the Tema Oil Refinery (TOR) by the first quarter of next year, as it aims at improving the local production of some essential products for the energy sector.

The move according to Mr. Ofori Atta is also in line with plans to reposition the energy sector to reduce the importation of such petroleum products.

The Tema Oil Refinery (TOR) has since the commercial exploration of oil in 2010, been saddled with numerous challenges that have also hampered its refinery capacities.

Even though TOR had been tipped to increase its refinery productions from 16 to 18 million barrels, it is yet to achieve this aim.