TOR REPAIRS CATALYTIC CRACKER (PAGE 31, MARCH 10, 2010)

The Tema Oil Refinery (TOR) is to commence production at 70 per cent installed capacity by the end of March 2010, after a shutdown due to the breakdown of the refinery’s Residual Fluid Catalytic Cracker (RFCC).
A consultant engineer from the manufacturing company, Elliot Turbomachinery in Europe, arrived at the weekend to undertake installation works on the RFCC which developed a technical fault about three weeks ago.
TOR had for the period of the shutdown, depended on imported finished petroleum products and also allowed recognised bodies to import to secure the market.
The acting Managing Director of TOR, Dr Kwame Ampofo, who made this known in Tema, explained that the wet gas compressor of the RFCC developed a technical fault and, therefore, could not compress the various gases.
TOR, therefore, delivered premix, fuel oil, LPG and aviation kerosene from the refinery while all others were supplied through pumping of the products to the Accra plains, Sahara and Cirrus depots and by ocean transfer to the Takoradi depot.
He said the manufacturers, Elliot Turbomachinery, had the sole responsibility for manipulating the equipment.
Dr Ampofo said TOR needed about $250,000 to pay for the cost of repairs and also settle an outstanding debt of about $400,000.
He said TOR owed the manufacturers the outstanding debt as result of a previous routine maintenance conducted on the plant.
Dr Ampofo said the refinery was in financial difficulties, but considering the importance of the equipment to the refinery, it managed to pay off the debt and maintenance cost from its own internally generated funds to have the faulty equipment replaced.
He said the seals of the Wet Gas Compressor components needed for the repair works were ordered from the manufacturers and airlifted to in Ghana on Tuesday, March 2, 2010.
Dr Ampofo disclosed that it would take two weeks to install the components and another one week during which period the RFCC would heat up for production to start and “normalcy to be restored to TOR”.
He said TOR had its own arrangement of crude supplies and this would enable it to have a stock of two million barrels of crude every two months and, therefore, gave an assurance that there would be regular availability of petroleum products on the market.
Dr Ampofo stated that there was also a government-to-government arrangement for supply of the commodity on the 90-day credit basis.
He commended workers of TOR for their commitment and sacrifices, noting that through their ingenuity, the refinery had continued to function.
Dr Ampofo said after the inferno at TOR, engineers, supported by the workers, fabricated loading bays to enable the refinery to continue to supply products to the OMCs for distribution in the country.
He noted that the ultimate goal of TOR was to replace the burnt gantries with modern automated facility.
Dr Ampofo said as a result of this, TOR was collaborating with Gazprom and Kampac Oil Company to achieve a speedy execution of the project.
He was optimistic that by the end of the year 2010, the new gantry would be in place to start operation.