Ghana's main oil refinery says shuts down due to breakdown

Ghana's main oil refinery has been shut down due to a mechanical fault at its and it will be closed for around a month, Tema Oil Refinery's spokeswoman Aba Lokko said on Tuesday.
The underlying cause of the breakdown in March at the government-owned refinery is lack of maintenance linked to a lack of investment, coupled with unreliable power supply in a country facing a power crisis, she told Reuters.
"We were refining the (oil) residue and then a unit within that plant developed a fault so there was some serious issue with it and so we had to shut down the plant," she said, referring to the fault in the residue fluid catalytic cracking plant.
Ghana produces around 100,000 barrels per day of crude oil at its offshore Jubilee field and it also imports oil for domestic consumption.
President John Mahama said last year the government was seeking an external partner for the refinery.
For years, Ghana was considered one of Africa's brightest economic prospects because of its rapid growth on exports of oil, cocoa and gold. The government last week sealed an aid deal with the International Monetary to fix severe fiscal problems.