Parliamentary Committees visit fire site in Tema

Accra, April 1, GNA - The Management of Tema Oil Refinery on Friday said it stock of 100,000 tonnes of crude oil, which could run for four weeks, was intact in spite of the fire disaster which struck the Tema PSC Ship Yard on Good Friday.

The Company has also repeated its assurance that it does not anticipate any shortage in supplies to the market.

Although its pump house, which is used to run some of its equipment, was destroyed in the fire, the Company said it had made a makeshift arrangement to tap water into its equipment site.

The Company would use untreated water from the Ghana Water Company Limited until the water pumping at the harbour, which was destroyed by the fire, was repaired.

It said this arrangement had become necessary since repair work on the pump house was going to take quite sometime.

These came to light when two Parliamentary Committees met with some top members of the Management team of the Company in Tema. Mrs Gifty Kusi, Chairperson of the Mines and Energy Committee and Mr Samuel Obodai, Chairman of the Committee on Road Transport, led members of the two Committees to visit TOR and the PSC Tema Shipyard at the Tema Harbour.

Mr Robert Appau, General Manager in Charge of Engineering at TOR, said the Company was working hard to restore crude oil lines, which were destroyed in the incident.

He said the Volta Aluminium Company (VALCO) had to first of all remove their conveyor belt inter-connected with the crude oil lines before work could begin on these lines.

He said it would take about four to five days to restore these lines to get crude oil to the refinery.

The Company does not expect to operate at full capacity until the some major repairs are done.

Mrs Kusi said Members of Parliament were concerned about the ability of the Company to meet the demands on the market and, therefore, undertook the visit to assess the situation on the ground.

She said they would await the findings and conclusions of the Committee set up to investigate the fire incident before deciding on the next step.

Fifteen people lost their lives when a Togolese fishing vessel under repairs at the PSC Tema Shipyard caught fire on Good Friday.