TOR Suspending Operations In Two Units But Not Shutting Down
The Tema Oil Refinery (TOR) will shut two of its unit because of the refinery’s inability to raise letters of credit to import crude oil for processing.
Confirmed reports has indicated that reports of TOR being shut down effective immediately is false. Instead, two Units of the refinery, the Crude Distillation Unit (CDU) and the Residue Fluid Catalytic Cracker (RFCC) be suspending its operations due to lack of crude at the refinery.
TOR last two weeks ago shut its CDU after it finished processing its remainder of a 2 Million barrel crude it had in stock. The RFCC has been processing atmospheric residue since then and is expected to be completed today. In effect both the CDU and the RFCC are expected to be out of operation until TOR is able to raise credit to import crude oil.
Chairman for the General Transport Petroleum and Chemical Workers Union at TOR, John Elton Botwe in an interview with the media stated that this is a normal process that goes on at the Refinery anytime they run out of crude oil.
“It is not as if we are shutting down the refinery completely. What is happening is that when we are short of feed stock the plant has to come down. So that is just what we are doing. We have two plants, we have the CDU and the RFCC. The CDU has been down for a weeks or so because we don’t have crude. What we are doing now is that we are doing tolling, John Elton Botwe explained.
He further shared that TOR as it stands now even though their primary business is refining, they do other peripherals such as the transferring of products, as well as LPG and other laboratory services.
He also disclosed that the plant always runs with the availability of crude so if there is no crude they can’t put it on. Management is doing arrangements to bring in crude that will last long term and not just one week. They are therefore in talks with the Government to try and even give them some of the Ghana crude so that they will be able to sustain their running.
“Now management is signing other contracts then we can eventually pick it up again so it’s not that the company is coming to a halt”.
They are thus calling on Government and private investors that has crude to come to their aid to help in the running of the refinery.