The Managing Director of the Tema Oil Refinery (TOR), Kwame Awuah Darko, has asked staff of the company to prepare for his exit as a new government takes over the reign of the country next year.

He is, therefore, asking the staff to give their maximum support and cooperation to his successor, whoever that maybe.

Addressing staff at the company’s end of year thanksgiving service at Tema, Awuah Darko, who contested and lost the Ayawaso West Wuogon parliamentary seat on the ticket of the NDC in 2012, said “I’m sure this will be the last time I address you at Christmas as your Managing Director. Change has come… we must all support that change and work accordingly”.

The comment was met with grumblings of regret from the staff as he continued by saying, “and sometime; I don’t know how long it’s going to be, but you’ll have the pleasure of being introduced to a new leader. I beg you, I pray, I urge you to give that person all the support and commitment above what you have given me”.

This announcement is coming at a time when the refinery is preparing to refine crude from the Tweneboa, Enyenra and Ntomme (TEN) oil field this week.

TOR has taken delivery of one million barrels of first crude being produced from the TEN project. The product would be sold on the Ghanaian market when refined. This is coming amidst skepticism from some players in the oil and gas industry over TOR’s ability to refine crude from Ghana’s Jubilee and TEN fields which are of premium quality.

The Managing director says the refinery is in a position to refine such grade of crude following major expansion and repair works.

“At the beginning of this year, if anybody had said that TOR would be refining 7 million barrels and would have an extra 1 million barrels of ten crude sitting down to wait, nobody would have believed us,” he touted.

He also disclosed plans to increase production capacity of crude to between 16 and 18 million barrels in 2017.

“…because of the expansion capacity we have, we are planning to do between 16 and 18 million barrels of crude oil processing in 2017,” he said .

This would be realized after the refinery undergoes its turnaround maintenance program scheduled for February 2017.

As at 2015, the estimate on the refinery’s books stood at GHC 1.6 billion, Mr. Awuah Darko in May 2016, announced steps being taken by the company to offset its debts in the next 10 years, after recording $800,000 profit between February and April.

The introduction of the Energy Debt Recovery Levy would also aid in paying off the debts.