TOR workers to picket at public places from May 2

Workers of the Tema Oil Refinery (TOR) will picket from Tuesday, May 2, to Friday, May 5, 2023, at six public places in Tema to back their calls on the government to revamp the operations of the Refinery.

A group of 40 workers would concurrently picket between 06:00 hours and 11:00 hours at the Motorway Roundabout, Rana Roundabout, Valco Roundabout, MPS Roundabout, Hospital Roundabout, and Community 5 Traffic Light.

Mr. Bernard Owusu, National Chairman of the GTPCWU, disclosed to the Ghana News Agency in an interview at Tema that the venues were agreed with the Ghana Police Service after they wrote to inform them about their plans in accordance with the Public Order Act.

Mr. Owusu said the picketing formed part of a series of actions to mount pressure on the government to resuscitate the dying Refinery towards immediate operations, as it had been non-operational for some time now.

He noted that the workers would be at these vantage points with placards to drum home their demands.

He disclosed that the Union also engaged the management to deliberate on the refinery’s operations and had a fruitful meeting with the Minister of Energy on the revamping of the operations of the Refinery.

These engagements and planned picketing come on the heels of a press conference held by the workers to drum home their grievances about the non-functionality of the Refinery which has the capacity to refine 45,000 barrels of crude oil a day but is currently only carrying finished products instead of fulfilling its core mandate of refining crude.

The workers said that TOR, if working at its full capacity, would be able to supply 50 percent of the country’s overall domestic consumption, 100 percent of the Residual Fuel Oil (RFO) for the operations of industries, 20 to 25 percent of LPG consumption, and 100 percent of Aviation Turbine Kerosene (ATK).

They noted that Ghana needed about $4.8 billion per year to import petroleum products, adding that if TOR was fully operational, the forex requirement for petroleum product imports would significantly reduce by over 50 percent.

Another benefit they indicated was the lowering of domestic ex-pump prices due to the removal of certain import charges, including the freight rate of about $92/Mt for petrol, $101/Mt for diesel, and $83/Mt for LPG.