BoG GIVES TOR APPROVAL TO RAISE $54M FOR CRUDE

THE Bank of Ghana has given approval to the Tema Oil Refinery (TOR) to raise $54 million from local banks to pay for 600,000 barrels of crude oil which have remained on the high seas for the past four weeks.

Until the approval, TOR was finding it difficult to raise letters of credit covering $54 million because of a regulation by the central bank on the Single Obligon Limit (SOL) which restricts one commercial bank from granting loans of more than GH¢16 million to TOR.

With the approval, the Nippon Princess vessel carrying the consignment can now dock at the single point mooring (SPM) at the Tema Port for onward delivery to TOR.

An official source at the refinery told the Daily Graphic that pumping of the product to TOR’s reservoirs was expected to begin today August 4, 2011, following a successful establishment of the LCs by the bank.

The delivery of the consignment would on the other hand last for a three weeks period, and these workers feared may result in another shut down should government failed to guarantee an alternative arrangement to ensure frequent procurement of crude oil.

The unavailability of crude oil for production over the past weeks compelled management to shut down the Crude Distillation Unit (CDU) plant last week, four weeks after an earlier shutdown of the Residual Fluid Catalytic Cracker (RFCC) on June 30, this year.

The latest shutdown of the two plants was the third in a series of shutdowns undertaken by the refinery management within this year.

In all the instances, the shutdowns had lasted for four weeks, while the restarting processes which were carried out through a gasification process where Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) and light gas were put into the system to heat it up before the application of the atmospheric residue (AR) consumed some 20 tones of LPG estimated at some $6000.

Meanwhile the leadership of the senior staff and junior staff workers of TOR have indicated their intention to meet with the leadership of the Trades Union Congress (TUC) over government’s inability to ensure TOR had access to crude oil from the Jubilee fields.

According to them, TOR had since the commencement of production at the Jubilee fields intensified efforts to secure crude from the field to process of which LCs were raised to enable Vitol deliver.

They indicated that twist of events from the Ministry of Energy led to the cancellation of the order.

Source: Della Russel Ocloo, Daily Graphic, Aug 4, 2011