TOR SUFFERS MAJOR SETBACK (PAGE 3, SEPT 14, 2010)

THE Tema Oil Refinery suffered a major setback when its utility section mistakenly pumped sea water into the boilers which serve the plant, causing severe damage to the refinery’s two operative giant boilers, the Crude Distillation Unit (CDU) and the Residual Fluid Catalytic Cracker (RFCC) .
Workers of the refinery have, for almost two weeks now, been working around the clock to restore the plant by pumping out the salty water which has diluted the products, causing a huge loss to the company.
According to a source at the refinery, the sea water was supposed to be pumped for fire service operations when it was mistakenly pumped into the boilers of the plant, displacing the chemically based water and causing damage to the CDU, RFCC and the boilers.
The source was of the view that somebody must be made to answer for the situation that had led to a shutdown for almost two weeks without production.
The Daily Graphic learnt that it would cause the refinery so much resource to complete the work because all the chemicals would have to be put back afresh after pumping out the diluted water in the equipment.
The source said the situation caused an automatic shutdown of the plant and discarded the hue and cry about the shutdown by management for lack of crude.
Some of the workers told the Daily Graphic that they were suspicious of ‘saboteurs’ at the plant and called on the government to set up a committee to investigate the situation and deal with the culprits.
They said the three managers in charge of the utility section should be held responsible for the damage caused to the refinery.
Some of the workers were furious and threatened to embark on a strike at the appropriate time to ensure that sanity prevailed at the refinery.
The Public Relations Officer of the refinery, Mrs Aba Lokko, declined to talk about the situation but indicated that the salty water situation had been rectified and was hopeful that the plant would start operations before the end of this week.
She confirmed that the workers were indeed angry, noting that it did not have anything to do with the shortage of liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) on the market.
Mrs Lokko said management was concerned about how to restore the plant before looking for any culprit.
She said the refinery had sufficient stock of fuel and therefore did not suffer any shortage of the product on the market.