THE DISCHARGE of the 997,000 barrels of crude oil brought into the country by Sahara Energy last Sunday from Nigeria by the Tema Oil Refinery (TOR) finally started yesterday around 10:30 am.
The MV Wilhelmina had docked at Tema Port for the past five days without discharging its consignment because of the failure of TOR to secure payment for the product which had eluded the refinery for the past 10 months.
TOR's indebtedness has greatly contributed to its inability to get a lifeline from its suppliers as well as creditors.
The discharge of the crude oil is expected to last for at least three days and the consignment is believed to be the largest amount of crude oil the Tema-based oil refining facility has ever taken delivery of in recent times.
The release is believed to have started after the Letters of Credit (LCs) was established by Ecobank Transnational, after a marathon closed-door meeting amongst officials of the bank and those of ministries of Finance, Energy as well as TOR.
DAILY GUIDE's source at TOR however failed to point out what turned things around, after earlier suggestions that the LCs provided by the bank earlier on could cover only 750,000 barrels of the crude oil brought by Sahara Energy, which led to a delay in the discharge of the consignment.
Earlier on, there were worries as to how TOR was going to raise an amount of $24.7million, after Ecobank had provided $ 54 million worth of Letters of Credit which is believed to have covered about 80% of the crude oil brought in last Sunday.
The latest development brings to an end, the saga surrounding the acquisition of crude oil for the agitated workers of the facility which saw President Mills swiftly moving in to assure them of government's effort at providing them with crude oil to resume work.
In a related development, a vessel carrying finished products imported into the country by Chase Petroleum was reported to have arrived at the Single Point Mooring (SPM) facility near Kpone and was seen offloading its cargo into storage facilities at the Accra Plains Depot.
DAILY GUIDE's source could however not tell who imported the product and how much was involved in the importation of it.
From Razak Mardorgyz Abubakar, Tema
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