Ghana's 45,000 b/d Tema oil refinery (TOR) will restart imminently, after it secured 1mn bl of Tweneboa Enyera Ntomme (TEN) crude from Total.
The crude will be delivered before the end of December on the Ridgebury Mary Selena, according to Accra-based research body Institute for Energy Security (IES).
TOR's crude distillation unit (CDU) was shut on 30 November after processing 950,000 bl of Nigerian Bonny Light crude received from BP on 23 October. The refinery struggles to secure financing to purchase crude, which has forced it to close intermittently and at times operate on a cargo-by-cargo basis, previously under tolling arrangements.
TOR has since reached agreement with BP for the delivery of four more parcels of around 1mn bl each.
The resumption in crude deliveries was made possible after TOR sold some refined product manufactured from the Bonny Light cargo. These sales included 19,000t of gasoil to Ghana-registered Stratcon Energy, loaded from 5-7 December. TOR also sold 18,000t of naphtha, consisting of 12,400t heavy and 5,600t light product, to trading firm Vitol, which loaded from 15-18 December.
The refinery's residual fluid catalytic cracker (FCC) has begun warming up for subsequent feeding-in of the atmospheric residue from the previous cargo. The initial start-up scheduled 14 days ago was suspended after leaks were detected from some heat exchangers.
The refinery has operated below capacity at 28,000 b/d since a fire at one of its furnaces in 2017.
The fall in oil prices in November resulted in the refinery making a loss of over $24mn on the processing of the Bonny Light cargo, according to IES. But it said the renewed agreement with BP will help TOR cover some of these losses.
