TOR; GHPA working to repair faulty ATK loading facility

Tema, May 29, GNA - The Tema Oil Refinery (TOR) is liaising with the Ghana Ports and Harbours (GPHA) to expedite work on the repair of a faulty fuel discharging arm facility at the oil berth at Tema main Harbour for the discharge of Aviation Turbine Kerosene (ATK). There are five loading/discharging fuel arms facilities at the oil jetty and the two for the ATK are faulty.

Speaking to the Ghana News Agency (GNA) on Thursday, Mrs Aba Lokko, Public Affairs Manager of TOR explained that, the ATK facility at the Refinery takes a stock that can last for one and half weeks. She said when the stock was depleted last week and the Refinery was about to take delivery of another ATK, it was detected that there was leakage on the facility that discharges into the vessel at the delivery point but attempt to repair it was not immediately successful. Therefore, she said taking environmental issues into consideration TOR informed the GPHA and the Ghana Civil Aviation Authority about the problem for them to put the necessary measures in place to repair the facility.

When the problem occurred, Total and Shell Oil Companies, sole dealers in ATK were informed to arrange and lift some of the product from neighbouring countries, whilst frantic efforts were made to solve the problem.

Mrs Lokko said at the moment a vessel was discharging fuel through the remaining arms and so could not bring in the ATK as the discharging facility need to be cleaned thoroughly to avoid contamination with other products and ensured safety.

This she said was expected to be completed by the week-end. She explained that there are five discharging arms, two each for "white" and "black" fuel products whilst the remaining one is for Liquefied Petroleum Product (LPG). The two for the white product developed the fault.