Africa

First in Four Years, Oil Tanker Offloads Russian Crude in Ghana, Reports Say

The tanker Theseus, loaded with 600,000 barrels of Russian crude oil, left the Black Sea port of Novorossiysk in late January and arrived in Ghanaian waters off the Gulf of Guinea on February 24. The raw materials were to be delivered to the Tema Oil Refinery (TOR), located 24 km from Ghana's capital of Accra.
Sputnik
On Monday, the vessel Theseus wrapped up discharging its shipment of Russian crude petroleum into storage reservoirs at the Tema Oil Refinery in Ghana, following a nearly six-week stay at the harbor while awaiting the offloading process.
According to the media, the St. Kitts-Nevis-flagged oil tanker left its initial position, where it was docked since late February, over the weekend and moored at a single-point mooring (SPM) connected by submarine pipelines to storage tanks at the Tema refinery, located 24 km from the West African country’s capital of Accra.
Theseus reportedly offloaded about 600,000 barrels of crude petroleum loaded from the Russian port of Novorossiysk in the Black Sea, marking the first delivery of Russian crude oil to West Africa in four years.
The media noted that the delay in unloading the vessel occurred due to security measures after obtaining permission from the Ghana National Petroleum Authority to discharge the cargo.
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The Tema refinery, which is Ghana's primary crude processing plant, has been inactive for around two years now, despite government promises to restart operations in 2023.
According to the Accra-based not-for-profit organization, Institute for Energy Security (IES), Platon Gas Oil Ghana Ltd. purchased the oil shipment from Russia, and has leased storage tanks at the larger neighboring TOR refinery.
Nana Amoasi VII, IES Executive Director, stated in an interview with local media that Platon plans to process the Russian crude at its small refinery, which could take up to six months.
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