President John Dramani Mahama has announced plans to restructure the Tema Oil Refinery (TOR) to permanently eliminate political interference in its operations, tying the move to a broader push to strengthen Ghana’s petroleum industry and expand local refining capacity.
Mahama announced the plan on Saturday, August 1, 2026, at a ceremony in Tema that marked the arrival and processing of the first shipment of Ghana’s Jubilee crude oil at the state-owned refinery. Addressing the gathering, he declared that the government would act “in order that we permanently eliminate political interference” in the refinery’s operations.
he ceremony also commissioned TOR’s refurbished facilities, including the rehabilitated Crude Distillation Unit, the restored fluid catalytic cracking unit, a new F-61 crude heater, and boiler number eight returned to service. It further marked the processing of one million barrels of locally produced Jubilee Field crude into finished products.
Mahama spoke bluntly about the stakes of the refinery’s turnaround, stating that the asset would otherwise “have been leased out for 15 years” had workers not resisted that option. He argued the episode had disproved doubts about state enterprises and credited TOR and Sentuo’s output with helping the country weather recent global fuel disruptions with barely any public impact.
Outlining the project’s ambitions, Mahama told the audience: “We do not intend merely to keep TOR operating.” The goal, he said, is a more competitive, efficient and commercially viable refinery.
The government also plans to upgrade TOR’s Single Buoy Mooring infrastructure to ease crude and product offloading, positioning Ghana as a regional refining and logistics hub. As Mahama put it: “Our work does not end with restoring TOR.”T
Story by : Emmanuel Nettey
