Ghana’s dormant TOR refinery to restart crude operations by October-end

Ghana’s Tema Oil Refinery (TOR) will resume crude oil refining before the end of October, officials said, marking a major step in reviving the country’s long-idle state refinery and reducing dependence on imported fuel.

TOR, once Ghana’s flagship energy facility, has been largely inactive for years, functioning mainly as a storage depot for fuel importers rather than refining crude, reports Daily Graphic.  

But a comprehensive Turnaround Maintenance Project, now 98% complete, is set to restore full operations within days, according to Godwin Mahama, TOR’s Corporate Affairs Officer.

“The new management has made it a point that the company goes back to its main core mandate by the end of this month,” Mahama told Onua FM in Accra. “TOR will start refining crude in this country. We have started what we call the turnaround maintenance to put all the equipment back into shape.”

The restart follows months of maintenance and restructuring work aimed at rehabilitating TOR’s key processing units, including its 45,000 bpd crude distillation plant, which has been idle since 2021 due to technical faults and financial constraints.

Officials said crude feedstock for the initial restart will be sourced under a new supply arrangement with the Sentuo Oil Refinery and the Bulk Oil Storage and Transportation (BOST) company, while discussions continue with international traders for longer-term crude procurement.

TOR, located east of Accra, has faced chronic underinvestment, high debt, and equipment failure in recent years, leading to periodic shutdowns. A previous public-private partnership (PPP) plan involving Torentco Asset Management was cancelled earlier this year after the government cited transparency concerns.

Mahama said the refinery’s Turnaround Maintenance Committee will hand over the plant to the production unit by Friday (October 17), paving the way for final inspections. “Before the third week of this month, the first crude will arrive in the country, and refining will begin,” he added.

For several years, TOR survived by renting out its large storage tanks to bulk oil distribution companies (BDCs) that import finished products into Ghana. The revival of refining operations, Mahama said, will “restore the refinery’s core function and create jobs.”

Mahama credited the refinery’s comeback to the leadership of Managing Director Edmund Kombat and the support of President John Mahama, under whose administration the state enterprise has been prioritised for rehabilitation.

“President Mahama has consistently reiterated that TOR must work again because when TOR works, it brings employment and strengthens our foreign exchange position,” he said.

He added that restoring TOR’s refining capacity would significantly reduce Ghana’s reliance on imported petroleum products and help stabilise the national currency.

“Currently, almost all our finished products are imported, but if TOR can meet about 60% of the local market demand, we’ll save foreign currency, strengthen the cedi, and complement the government’s economic stabilisation efforts, including those by the Finance Ministry and GOLDBOD,” Mahama noted, referring to the country’s gold board.

Ghana, a net oil producer since 2011, has long struggled to translate its crude output into refined fuel security. Successive governments have pledged to revive TOR, which has faced years of debt, mismanagement, and technical breakdowns.

Ghana is a mid-tier oil producer in West Africa with output of roughly 145,000–160,000 bpd of crude oil. If the relaunch proceeds as planned, TOR’s restart will mark the first time in nearly a decade that the country processes its own crude oil domestically.

Commercial oil production began in 2010 from the Jubilee Field, operated by Tullow Oil (LSE:T LW) and partners Kosmos Energy (NYSE:KOS), PetroSA, and the Ghana National Petroleum Corporation (GNPC). Since then, two additional deep-water developments—TEN (Tweneboa-Enyenra-Ntomme) and Sankofa-Gye Nyame—have come onstream, consolidating Ghana’s offshore hub along the western coast near Takoradi.