The Managing Director of Tema Oil Refinery (TOR), Mr. Edmond Kombat, has called on local and international investors in the oil and gas industry to explore investment opportunities at the state-owned refinery and partner with the company on its expansion plans.
Mr. Kombat said TOR is looking for strategic partners to help increase its refining capacity from the current 45,000 barrels per stream day (bpsd) to 85,000 bpsd, before eventually expanding to 200,000 bpsd.
He made the call during Ghana Day on the second day of Africa Oil Week in Accra, where he outlined the refinery’s expansion plans and the opportunities available to potential investors.
According to Mr. Kombat, the expansion would strengthen TOR’s refining capacity, allow more crude oil to be processed locally and increase the availability of locally refined petroleum products for Ghana and other West African markets.
He explained that the project would be implemented in phases, beginning with the redevelopment of the existing refinery.
“We are going to expand the refinery. There are two phases. One is the brownfield. We are currently going to take it from 45,000 to 85,000 [barrels per day], and the timeline that we have is that we can do it in one and a half years,” Mr. Kombat said.
“We are not looking for a 50-year timeline where we will not be there and say that we didn’t have time. We have a short period of time to get that done,” he added.
The second stage, which he described as a greenfield development, will raise the refinery’s capacity further from 85,000 bpd to 200,000 bpd.
“That will be the end stage for the land that we currently have,” he said.
Beyond refining capacity, Mr. Kombat identified storage facilities and other related infrastructure as additional areas requiring investment. He said strategic partners would be needed to provide financing, technology and access to international and regional markets.
He also acknowledged the increasing interest in TOR, encouraging investors and prospective partners to assess the range of opportunities available at the refinery.
Ghana currently consumes approximately 133,000 barrels of petroleum products each day, equivalent to about 21 million litres, Kombat said.
He added that Ghana imported around 6.2 million metric tons of petroleum products last year, with approximately 1 million metric tons of those imports supplied to Burkina Faso and other countries within the West African region.
Mr. Kombat said Ghana’s political stability positioned the country as an important petroleum supply hub for neighbouring countries.
“Most West African nations depend on Ghana given the country’s political stability,” he said.
He disclosed that TOR had already engaged with Burkina Faso and other countries in the region, which, he said, were prepared to purchase substantial volumes of petroleum products from Ghana.
Mr. Kombat further indicated that the government was working to shield TOR from political interference in the future, drawing on the refinery’s previous management difficulties.
He said the refinery would be structured as a separate entity under a special purpose vehicle (SPV) arrangement, with an independent board and management.
“It will be set up as a kind of separate entity in an SPV structure to make sure that the board is quite independent, management does not have any interference, because it’s a strategic national asset for the country,” Mr. Kombat said.
He also disclosed that President John Dramani Mahama had directed relevant authorities to work towards a system that would eventually allow TOR to purchase Ghanaian crude oil in cedis, subject to the passage of the required legislation.
“The President, after giving us the Ghanaian crude from the fields, has directed the Governor as well as the Minister of Finance and Minister of Energy that in the not-too-distant future, once an Act of Parliament is passed, we should buy all the crude in cedis,” he said.
“If we buy all the crude in cedis and we pay for it in cedis, all this discussion about forex, we will not have those kinds of issues again,” he added.