The Institute for Energy Security (IES) has written to President Nana Akufo-Addo, pleading with him to spare the state-owned Tema Oil Refinery (TOR) from closure.
As a result, it is pleading with the President to act immediately and return the plant to a viable operating state, before it shuts down in a couple of months.
President Akufo-Addo should also guarantee that the refinery's management and board adopt a detailed business plan to ensure that TOR is operationally and financially sustainable, since global fuel market trends will continue to have a direct impact on the Ghanaian fuel market.
The IES said in a statement that TOR is still in a coma and that he must intervene immediately to rescue the state. a facility with a debt of nearly $400 million from going bankrupt
"As the price of a gallon of diesel approaches Gh60, the Institute for Energy Security (IES) wishes to inform President H.E. Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo that "the Tema Oil Refinery (TOR) remains in a coma, requiring his urgent intervention to save the State facility, which is saddled with over Gh400 million debt, from total collapse."
"After almost six years of terrible management, the refinery stands idle and forlorn, missing out on the chances of the Russian-Ukraine war, as well as the possibility of building that synergy between the upstream and downstream sectors of Ghana's petroleum industry," the energy think tank stated.
It voiced dissatisfaction that TOR is sitting useless, rusting away, despite the fact that the global economic crisis brought on by the pandemic, as well as the Russian-Ukraine war, provide an opportunity for the country's petroleum industry to capitalize on possibilities in the petroleum value chain.
According to the IES, previous refinery managements and boards have "blatantly failed to offer the crucial leadership necessary to preserve and expand the refinery," especially now that the current administration is in power.
In January 2017, he took over a refinery that had cracked 7 million barrels of oil between mid-2015 and the end of 2016.
The owes of TOR, according to the report, are a combination of bad sales and purchase agreements, poor facility maintenance, capacity under-utilization, operational inefficiencies, under-investment, carelessness, and incoherent policies, adding that the aforementioned challenges have diminished any hope that the refinery can run uninterrupted and even profitably.
"At a time when this country most needs it, the refinery has ceased to play any meaningful role in managing fuel price and supply risks, while pockets of fuel shortages are documented," the IES added. "The price of fuel has nearly quadrupled in the past six and a half years, stoking inflationary pressures on the entire economy, as Ghanaians will attest."
"Unfortunately, the Energy Minister, Dr. Matthew Opoku Prempeh sits ignorant, failing to propose a single strategic solution to elevate TOR out of its current position while demanding for another refinery," it said.
Instead, the IES claims that the Minister is refusing to cooperate with TOR's management and board choices and strategic directions, a situation that would be disastrous.
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