Atuabo gets oil refinery

STORY BY: EVANS OSEI BAFFOUR

The Executive Chairman of Alpha Refinery, South African base oil refinery company, Melvyn Julie, has disclosed that Atuabo in the Ellembele District of the Western region stands  the chance of getting a $ 7 billion refinery to serve as a back up to the Jubilee Fields.

The refinery, he added, would seek to produce a capacity of about 200,000 barrels a day with crude from the Jubilee Fields in the Western region.

According to the executive chairman, “We have signed the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the government and have permits for the work to begin on the next stage which is the construction of the facilities itself.”

“We are now at the stage of building the tank farms which together with other aspects of the whole projects is expected to come on stream in 2015,” Julie added.

The refinery operation when completed would employ about 3,000 Ghanaians with much emphasis on the local people.

He said the company was also in talks with the authorities in Nigeria to secure feed stocks (crude) to augment what they would get in Ghana.

We envisaged that production at the Jubilee Fields would not be enough to feed the refinery and so we have started talks to get more from Nigeria,” Julie said.

He added that the company was also interested in the processing of gas which would form a major aspect of their production.

“The authorities in Nigeria are also in talks with us to process gas and we are negotiating with them at this stage.”