TOR TAKES DELIVERY OF CRUDE OIL (BACK PAGE, OCT 30)

THE Tema Oil Refinery (TOR) yesterday began taking delivery of the 997,000 barrels of crude oil imported into the country last Sunday.
The unloading of the product for TOR, which began at 10:48 a.m., is expected to take three days.
The ship which brought the product, imported into the country by Sahara Energy, spent over 96 hours offshore at the Single Point Mooring (SPM) facility, following difficulties with the acquisition of Letters of Credit (LCs).
Inside sources at the refinery told the Daily Graphic that an arrangement had been reached with Sahara Energy for the rest of the payment to be effected at an agreed date after successful delivery of the oil.
The acting Managing Director of TOR, Dr Kwame Ampofo, would, however, not comment on this new development, as he told this reporter that he was attending a board meeting when he finally answered his telephone after failing to do so for the past four days.
When reached on telephone, the Deputy Minister of Energy, Dr Kwabena Donkor, told the Daily Graphic that the issue at hand was a technical and operational one.
“We at the ministry are in charge of policies and supervision,” he remarked.
The absence of crude oil at the refinery, 10 months into the ruling National Democratic Congress administration, has seen the government and the workers of the refinery on a collision course, with the latter threatening to embark on a strike.
The move saw the President visiting the refinery last week to ascertain its true state and also interact with the workers, while assuring the nation of the importance the government attached to the operation of the refinery, which he described as one of the pivots of the country’s economic development.
The move resulted in the government reaching an agreement with Sahara Energy, which imported the 137,000 metric tonnes of crude oil into the country, while the government struggled for LCs to facilitate delivery, until Ecobank Ghana went to its rescue.