TOR Faces Shut Down

THE TEMA Oil Refinery (TOR) is likely to shut down again following reports of imminent shortage of crude oil to power the two major plants, the Residual Fluid Catalytic Cracker (RFCC) and the Crude Distillation Unit (CDU), according to information reaching Daily Guide. Operations at the facility are expected to come to a halt by the end of this week as the facility is estimated to run out of the last drop of its crude after promises by the management of the company to get supply to the facility did not materialise. Workers of the facility had earlier threatened to expose persons they claimed were incapacitating the refinery due to kickbacks. A source has hinted Daily Guide that shortly after a media publication on the crisis at the facility some weeks ago, management went to borrow 100,000 barrels of crude from the Volta River Authority (VRA) so as to ensure that there was crude to power the plants. The source said that as soon as the publication came out, the TOR management arranged to get Sahara Group of Nigeria to lift 300,000 barrels of crude for the refinery. This, according to the source at the refinery, sustained the operations of the plants, but because the last few barrels of crude at the refinery are already being refined, there was the likelihood that the crude would have finally run out by Friday. The arrangement to get the Nigerian company, Sahara Group, to bring in crude, according to the source, was to ensure that the workers did not go ahead with their threat to expose government officials allegedly sabotaging the refinery. The Sahara Group, according to the source, was expected to supply another 450,000 barrels of crude last weekend, but for unknown reasons, the ship carrying the crude was unable to arrive at the Tema Port for the release to TOR. Management of TOR, according to the source, has told workers of the company not to worry as plans to bring in the 450,000 barrels of crude from Nigeria by the weekend still hold. Daily Guide�s investigations at the facility indicate that the supposed 450,000 barrels of crude may after all not be arriving. This, according to the workers, was a source of worry not to only them but the nation as well since anytime the two plants shut down and re-started, the company lost over one million dollars. �At the moment, the refinery is still running, but if we do not get crude by the end of this week as promised by management, we will run out of crude oil and when this happens we will have no other choice than to shut the two plants down completely,� the source remarked.