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The Tema Oil Refinery (TOR) loses $350,000 each day the refinery’s processing plants do not operate.

The refinery, which broke down again on March 13, 2015 after it bounced back in December last year, makes $350,000 daily when it operates at full capacity.

Yesterday, Deputy Minister of Energy in charge of Power, John Abdulai Jinapor said on Peace FM that government has released the remaining $37 million in government funding, which TOR was awaiting to fix the refinery.

However, calls placed to Dr Alphons Kwao Dorcoo, Chief Executive of TOR, for confirmation of receipt of the money were not answered.

In 2010, TOR requested for $67.7 million for plant stabilisation and enhancement projects.

Consequently, TOR has completed the first phase of plant stabilisation and enhancement projects on the crude distillation and residual fluid catalytic cracking units at a cost of $30 million, given to TOR by government in 2012.

The general shutdown turnaround maintenance for 2011 and 2013 were not carried out because of lack of finance endangering the refinery.

TOR refines crude to produce gasoline, cracked fuel oil, Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG), aviation turbine kerosene, gas oil, naphtha and atmospheric residue.

Before the deregulation policy that paved the way for the entrance of Bulk Oil Distribution Companies (BDCs), TOR was contributing 10% of Gross Domestic Product (GDP).

TOR is a strategic asset in terms of its total assets and employment generation, as well as contributes to the financial sector, insurance, security of petroleum sector, suppliers, industries and linkages with academia.

Ghana's fuel needs these days are imported as finished products, not crude, and the refinery processes none of the roughly 100,000 barrels per day of oil produced by the Jubilee offshore field, operated by Britain's Tullow Oil.

Last year, the refinery processed just 18% of Ghana's 3.7 million metric tonnes of fuel imports, according to Ghana Chamber of Bulk Oil Distributors figures.

The 45,000 barrel-a-day Tema Oil Refinery, east of Accra, is a case in point: it played a key role in Ghana's oil sector for decades, but was subsidised by the government. In practice, some of those payments were not made, leaving it in debt.

With the myriad of problems facing the efficient operations of Ghana’s only refinery, The Finder can report that the facility continues to make a loss of a minimum of $5 million to restart each time it is forced to shut down due to the unavailability of crude, fault, or in the event of a power cut to the facility. 

TOR requires a constant supply of eight megawatts of power to be fully operational, but it is able to generate 5.5 megawatts from its generators and depends on the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) for the remaining 2.5 megawatts. 

With the erratic power supply over the past three years, the effect on the refinery is anyone’s guess.  

By design, the refinery is expected to run continuously for a maximum of two years before it is shut down for a major maintenance of its equipment, but information gathered by The Finder indicates that the refinery is only able to run continuously for only two to three weeks and then shuts down due to unavailability of crude.