Tema, April 17, GNA - The Tema Oil Refinery (TOR) will undergo a 200 million-dollar expansion programme to increase its production from 45,000 barrels currently to 145,000 barrels a day. Speaking to newsmen in Tema on the sidelines of a lecture on Ghana's oil find, Dr Kofi Kodua Sarpong, Managing Director of TOR, said the project is expected to begin late this year and be completed in two years. The lecture was organised by the Tema Chapter of the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology for its alumni in Tema.

Dr Sarpong said on completion, the Refinery would consider the production of other products such as bitumen and other petrol chemicals, in addition to petrol, liquefied petroleum gas, diesel and kerosene. He denied reports that petrol consumption in Ghana had reduced drastically because of price hikes, saying it has rather stabilized. Dr Sarpong noted that the price of petrol has become a disincentive to smugglers, who were ferrying the fuel across the borders and that their illicit activities had ceased.

In his presentation at the lecture, Dr Sarpong cautioned that in the wake of Ghana's oil find, the government should guard against concentrating its attention on petroleum alone to the neglect of other sources of revenue. He advised that resources generated from the oil should be channelled into the revamping of national industries to boost the economy and create jobs. The oil find, he warned, would rather become a curse than blessing if not managed properly to develop the entire nation.