Just sixteen months after standing on the brink of being leased or sold off for a mere $21 million, the Tema Oil Refinery (TOR) has staged one of the most remarkable industrial comebacks in Ghana’s modern history.
According to an official press briefing document titled Tema Oil Refinery: From Decline to Recovery, delivered in October 2026 by Managing Director Edmond Kombat Esq., the state-owned refinery has rebounded from years of decay to post a profit before tax of GH¢1.24 billion for 2025.
This is the first profitable performance in an entire decade.
The turnaround stands in sharp contrast to the collapse inherited in May 2025
At the time, TOR was weighed down by accumulated losses of about GH¢10 billion, debts of $517 million, and negative equity of GH¢7.6 billion.
Edmond Kombat noted that the refinery was no longer refining. Its primary processing facility, the Crude Distillation Unit (CDU), had been shut down since April 2021, while 18 of its 59 storage tanks sat out of service.
For six straight years (2019–2024), the company failed to publish audited accounts, and management had even resorted to secretly selling third-party petroleum products belonging to private clients just to pay staff salaries.
Yet, rather than relying on external bailouts or selling off national assets, the refinery orchestrated a completely self-funded revival under President John Dramani Mahama’s RESET Agenda.
Through an operational roadmap dubbed “Project Restore TOR,” management prioritized the complete rehabilitation of the dormant CDU.
Crucially, the entire turnaround maintenance was funded solely from TOR’s internally generated funds (IGF), without a single pesewa of central government repair funding, and executed entirely by TOR’s own Ghanaian engineers and technicians.
The overhaul ran from August 1 to October 30, 2025, recording zero fatalities or disabling injuries. Following rigorous inspection and safety clearance from the National Petroleum Authority (NPA), crude processing restarted on December 19, 2025, sending refined products back into domestic storage tanks for the first time in years.
The operational restart delivered immediate financial dividends
Beyond the GH¢1.24 billion profit, TOR slashed its trade and other payables from GH¢7.1 billion down to GH¢5 billion in a single year, cut receivable days from 1,099 to 652, and grew commercial revenue by over 36%.
The refinery also cleared its six-year transparency backlog by submitting seven audited annual reports to the State Interests and Governance Authority (SIGA), placing second nationwide on the Public Financial Management Compliance League Table.
The human and strategic impact has been profound
The revival created 1,657 direct jobs, including 415 young Ghanaian engineers placed into permanent roles, alongside over 6,500 indirect and temporary positions.
By taking delivery of and fully paying for indigenous crude from the Jubilee and Sankofa fields, TOR has successfully reconnected Ghana’s upstream oil production directly to domestic refining.
As the briefing notes, TOR’s self-funded resurrection proves that strategic domestic leadership and Ghanaian engineering can restore national dignity and energy independence from within.
