Aggrieved workers of the Tema Oil Refinery (TOR) are expected to meet their management today (Monday February 5) over plans to build a new refinery.

The Energy Minister Boakye Agyarko last week announced that government in partnership with the private sector would soon build a new oil refinery at the cost of $4billion.

The new refinery is expected to produce about 150,000 barrels of oil per day – eight times the current production of the TOR.

The disclosure came in the wake of some bad blood between energy think-tank, Institute for Energy Security (IES) and the management of TOR court to the displeasure of the workers.

According to the Chairman of the General Transport, Petroleum, and Chemical Workers Union at TOR, John Elton Botwey, the announcement by the Energy Minister was in bad faith as TOR has a development plan towards expanding the current refinery.

“Nobody has an idea what the Minister really wants to do,” he stated noting that whoever was technically advising him has not done a good job.

“Because…as it stands TOR itself has a development plan that’s going to see to it for an expansion and it is going to be the 160,000 barrels he was craving. And apparently, if he says he is going to build a new TOR I don’t know what is going to happen to the old TOR,” he told Starr News.

In 2010, TOR requested for $67.7 million for plant stabilisation and enhancement projects. In response, the government in 2012 released $30 million, which was used to complete the first phase of plant stabilisation and enhancement projects on the crude distillation and residual fluid catalytic cracking units.

TOR has completed the first phase of plant stabilisation and enhancement projects on the crude distillation and residual fluid catalytic cracking units at a cost of $30 million. With 45,000 barrels per day capacity, TOR should be able to refine over 16 million (16,425,000) barrels of crude oil annually.