Refinery Moves from GH¢10bn Losses to Profit, 1,657 Jobs Under Mahama’s Reset Agenda
By Stanley Assor
The Tema Oil Refinery (TOR) has staged one of the most dramatic turnarounds in Ghana’s state-owned enterprise history, moving from accumulated losses of about GH¢10 billion and a debt stock of US$517 million to a profit before tax of GH¢1.24 billion in 2025 its first return to profitability in a decade.
Addressing a press briefing in Tema, the Managing Director of TOR, Mr. Edmond Kombat Esq., chronicled the refinery’s journey from near-collapse to recovery under President John Dramani Mahama’s Reset Agenda, describing the feat as the product of visionary leadership, inter-agency collaboration and the dedication of TOR’s engineers and staff.
Mr. Kombat recalled that when the NDC government handed over power in January 2017, TOR was operating, its debt had been reduced from about US300 million, and the refinery had processed some five million barrels of crude in 2016, with two million barrels in storage. Ghana’s indigenous crude from the TEN field had also been delivered for domestic refining aboard MT Bodeira.
By 2025, however, the picture had changed drastically. The Crude Distillation Unit (CDU) had been idle since April 2021, the Residue Fluid Catalytic Cracking (RFCC) Unit since 2019, 18 out of 59 storage tanks were out of service some since 2004 and the company had not filed audited financial statements for six consecutive years.
TOR also owed GH¢200 million to the Ghana Revenue Authority, GH¢20 million to SSNIT, and GH¢190 million in outstanding obligations to staff provident funds, retirees and resignees. Negative equity stood at GH¢7.6 billion by the end of 2024.
“We met a refinery that was not refining and a tank farm used only for limited storage,” Mr. Kombat said.
Since May 2025, management has implemented Project Restore TOR, a recovery programme anchored on people, stronger cash controls and the rehabilitation of the CDU. The turnaround maintenance, funded solely from TOR’s Internally Generated Funds (IGF) and executed by TOR’s own engineers and technicians, ran from August 1 to October 30, 2025.
The National Petroleum Authority (NPA) inspected and cleared the plant, and crude processing resumed on December 19, 2025, with all product streams going to storage for the first time in years.
On August 1, 2026, President Mahama commissioned the refurbished CDU. Since May 2026, TOR has received four five-million-barrel crude cargoes Bonga, Baleine, Bonnie Light and Ghana’s Jubilee Medium Sweet crude aboard MT Apache with the Jubilee cargo paid for in full, the refinery’s first in a decade. A further 950,000 barrels of Sankofa crude arrived from GNPC on September 25, 2026.
The results, Mr. Kombat said, are clear. Commercial operations generated more than 36 per cent revenue growth in 2025 compared to 2024, and almost 60 per cent growth as of September 2026. Product storage volumes rose from 426,954 metric tonnes in 2024 to 1,107,389 metric tonnes in 2025 a 159.37 per cent increase and further to 1,350,000 metric tonnes in 2026, representing a 216.19 per cent increase between 2024 and 2026.
Audited accounts for 2019 to 2024 were completed by April 30, 2026, followed by the 2025 accounts on May 30, 2026, bringing the company up to date for the first time since the 2018 accounts were filed.
TOR held its first Annual General Meeting in a long time on June 30, 2026, and ranked second among all public institutions in the inaugural PFM Compliance League Table.
Trade and other payables fell from GH¢7.1 billion to GH¢5 billion in a single year. More than 300 staff petitions and promotion-related cases, some dating back a decade, were addressed.
The recovery has created 1,657 permanent and temporary jobs, including 415 young engineers recruited into permanent positions, 301 temporary workers for the CDU maintenance, 287 for the RFCC maintenance, and 654 employed by 35 local contractors. More than 6,500 indirect and temporary workers were engaged during the turnaround works.
At its nameplate capacity of 45,000 barrels per stream day (bpsd), TOR’s throughput is equivalent to roughly 35 per cent of the 128,000 barrels a day of clean products Ghana imported in 2025. Mr. Kombat noted that but for TOR’s restoration, fuel prices could have sold between GH¢22 and GH¢32 per litre in the last two pricing windows.
The refinery’s revival has also guaranteed fuel security for Ghana and its Sahelian neighbours, with Burkina Faso’s National Oil Company increasing its petroleum products movement through Ghana from 15 per cent in 2024 to 40 per cent today.
“We are witnessing Ghanaian crude being refined by Ghanaian engineers in a Ghanaian refinery, effectively linking the Ghanaian petroleum upstream, midstream and downstream together,” he said.
Despite the gains, the MD was candid that the work is not finished. Throughput currently stands at about 28,000 bpsd, with engineers from Verga Engineering working to complete the F-61 crude heater tie-in to raise capacity to between 45,000 and 55,000 bpsd. Medium-term plans include a new air cooler to raise capacity to 60,000 bpsd and replacing the 6,500 bpd catalytic reformers with a 10,000 bpd continuous catalytic reformer.
President Mahama has directed the Minister for Energy and Green Transition to work with the TOR Board on a strategic roadmap to raise processing capacity to 100,000 bpd, with a further plan to reach 200,000 bpd. The Ministry of Finance is considering writing off or converting into equity US$120 million of TOR’s legacy debt owed to government. Government is targeting about 70 per cent of national fuel demand from local refining by 2028.
Longer-term, TOR’s Restoration and Legacy Projects programme for 2026–2029 proposes a brownfield expansion from 45,000 to 85,000 bpsd and a new 115,000 bpsd greenfield refinery, alongside a specialist hospital with a burns and trauma centre and a staff housing project with the Ghana Home Ownership Fund.
Mr. Kombat drew a sharp contrast between the two periods: when the NDC handed over in January 2017, debt had been halved to about US517 million, the CDU had been idle since 2021, the RFCC since 2019, and six years of accounts were unaudited.
“These are not matters of opinion. They sit in the audit files, on the balance sheet and on the distillation column,” he said.
The MD expressed gratitude to President Mahama, the Minister for Energy and Green Transition, the NPA, GNPC, GOIL, BOST and TOR’s Board and staff, pledging management’s commitment to consolidating the gains and positioning TOR as a commercially viable and competitive refinery contributing to Ghana’s energy security, industrial growth and job creation.