Tema-Ghana, April 27, CDA Consult – The Tema Oil Refinery workers union, in collaboration with the General Transport Petroleum Chemical Workers Union (GTPCWU), the mother union, has launched a strategic engagement with stakeholders in order to reform TOR.
Tema Oil Refinery (TOR) has reported that unions have begun discussions with management and the Ministry of Energy about the refinery’s operations.
As part of the TOR Workers Union consultation, the team met with Ministry of Energy officials on Tuesday, April 25, and scheduled a meeting with management on Thursday, April 27, 2023.
Mr. Bernard Owusu, GTPCWU National Chairman, told reporters in Tema that working with stakeholders to restore TOR to full capacity will lower finance costs because these transactions are priced in cedis.
Given Ghana’s current financial troubles and debt restructuring process, the Union emphasised that large benefits from TOR’s work should be prioritised on the national agenda.
Mr. Owusu claimed that the planned picketing and series of activities in public places to promote their demands could not take place because the Ghana Police Service informed that they did not provide them with adequate notice as required by the Public Order Act.
However, he claimed that a letter has been sent to the Ghana Police Service, and that TOR workers in Tema will go on strike between May 2nd and 5th, 2023.
TOR employees are expected to picket at the Motorway Roundabout, Rana Roundabout, MPS Roundabout, Hospital Roundabout, and Community 5 Traffic Light every day between 06:00 a.m. and 11:00 a.m.
During a news conference a few days ago, the GTPCWU National Chairman questioned why Ghana had crude oil but TOR couldn’t get it to refine, adding that virtually all companies established under Ghana’s first President, Osagyefo Dr. Kwame Nkrumah, had collapsed due to political interference in their purely business operations, but TOR workers would not let that happen to the refinery.
He added that if TOR was fully operational, it would supply the country with 50% of its entire household use, 100% of Residual Fuel Oil (RFO) for industrial activities, 20% to 25% of LPG consumption, and 100% of Aviation Turbine Kerosene (ATK).
Mr. Owusu went on to claim that Ghana needed roughly $4.8 billion in petroleum product imports on average each year, and that if TOR was producing, Ghana’s FX requirement for petroleum product imports would be cut in half.
Other benefits, he adds, include lower local ex-pump costs as a result of the elimination of various import charges, such as the freight rate of approximately $92/Mt for petrol, $101/Mt for diesel and $83/Mt for LPG.
This comes after the workers organised a press conference to vent their concerns about the refinery’s non-operation, which has the potential to refine 45,000 barrels of crude oil per day but is now only shipping finished goods rather than fulfilling its fundamental purpose of refining crude.
