TOR Debt Now ¢1.85bn

Daniel Appiah, General Manager-Finance, The Tema Oil Refinery (TOR) has disclosed that Refinery’s total legacy debt as at April 30, 2019 was GH¢1.85 billion, after ESLA PLC had paid a total amount of Gh¢1.1 billion.

TOR in four months incurred a loss of over GH¢186 million.

However, the Mr. Appiah explained that the purported GHc186,349 loss incurred in four months by the refinery is mainly charges it incurred on legacy debts.

A statement signed by Mr. Appiah, stated that “the amount in question (GH¢186 million) was mainly incurred as a result of financial interest charges and exchange differences on TOR’s outstanding legacy debts yet to be paid from ESLA proceeds; and not due to trading or transactional activities by TOR”.

Giving the breakdown of the amount, the General Manager-Finance noted that GH¢999,557.00 and GH¢19,350.00 were exchange difference and financial charges respectively, of the legacy debts which formed 59.87 per cent of a total of GH¢198,610.00

The remaining 79,703 Ghana Cedis which formed 40.13 percent of the figure was for operational while GH¢12,261.00 was obtained from the figure as ‘less gross profit’ and the said GH¢186,349.00 recorded as the “net loss”.

According to him, as contained in TOR’s internal management report, the refinery made a gross profit in the first four months of this year indicating that “TOR is a potentially profitable company”.

Mr Appiah stated that TOR had been facing some liquidity challenges for some time now culminating in the company’s inability to implement its annual budgets.

“TOR’s revenue targets are not being achieved due to lack of working capital to procure crude oil for processing on continuous basis. However, fixed costs continue to be incurred, ”he said.

He added that due to lack of working capital, a number of efficiency-enhancement projects had stalled while some were yet to be started to improve the profitability of the company.

He however indicated that TOR was receiving support from Government of Ghana through the Ministries of Finance and Energy to turn around the fortunes of the refinery.