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The Chairman of the Parliamentary Committee on Mines and Energy, Dr. Kwabena Donkor, has charged government to start refining the country’s crude oil locally for export.
“Currently all of our oil is exported raw, it is not even refined in Ghana. I am saying that within the next three years, we must at least refine our oil in Ghana,” he said.
Since commercial oil production started in 2010, Ghana has been exporting raw crude oil from the jubilee field despite promisesto revamp Tema Oil Refinery (TOR) by government although it is faced with serious capacity and operational challenges.
Speaking at the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA) development dialogue series on Friday, Dr. Kwabena Donkor called on government “to restructure the economy and move away from raw material export to export of processed goods and services” saying there is a market for it.
“We must at least refine our oil in Ghana, there is a huge catchment market for finished petroleum products in Mali, Burkina and Niger,” he revealed.
According to him, it can be attained because; the domestic supply obligation clause in contracts with partners of the jubilee field could be activated to achieve this objective.
“We just have to reconfigure the transaction. If I had a certain position and there was the willingness in the body politics to do it, it is doable. It is the easiest thing to do,” he added.
Source: http://ghanaoilonline.org
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