Takoradi to get new $4bn oil refinery

The Akufo-Addo government is preparing to build a new oil refinery at Takoradi, Energy Minister Boakye Agyarko has revealed.

The new refinery will be ready within three or four years, according to Mr Agyarko who said the new refinery will be able to refine about eight times more crude in terms of quantity than the current 20,000 barrels per day by the current TOR.

Speaking to journalists on the sidelines of the Downstream Petroleum Colloquium by the National Petroleum Authority (NPA), Mr Agyarko said” “We want to make sure that in the next three to four years, we build a brand new TOR of about 150,000 barrels of oil per day throughput and then gradually ease out the old TOR which becomes a tank farm for the new TOR”.

He said: “Because the new TOR currently is at 20,000 barrels of oil per day which is not satisfactory and if you ramp it up, the most you could get out of the old engine is 80,000 barrels of oil per day.”

According to Mr Agyarko, the building of a new refinery “is to create a hub in the Western Region where you have the refining, storage, transportation and trading all happening within an enclave. It will be largely export-oriented.”

Mr Agyarko said: “We’ve already put in place an implementation committee which is looking at all the facets and the regulations required. … In my speech, I made reference to the need to make adjustments to the law.

“We’ve sent out the various teams to look at all the other hubs that operate in the world. I believe that in the not too distant future – two, three years you will begin to see the actual manifestations of these developments,” Mr Agyarko said.