President John Dramani Mahama has disclosed that Ghana is set to restart domestic crude oil refining at the Tema Oil Refinery in June 2026, signalling a renewed push to retain more value from the country’s petroleum resources and cut reliance on imported refined fuel.
The announcement, made by John Dramani Mahama during a diaspora town hall in London on Sunday, May 31, 2026, forms part of a broader economic strategy focused on local processing of raw materials and strengthening energy-sector self-sufficiency.
Under the plan, a consignment of crude from Ghana’s offshore production fields will be shipped to the Tema Oil Refinery for processing, reviving an initiative first introduced during his earlier tenure in office.
“We are just about to make history again. We did it in my first term but after we left office it didn’t continue. We are about to start to refine our own crude. In June we are delivering a parcel of Ghanaian crude from our own oil fields to the Tema Oil Refinery to process,” he said.
Mahama stressed that Ghana’s current export model, which ships out raw minerals for overseas processing, continues to deprive the economy of jobs and added value.
“We process manganese, bauxite, gold and everything and then we ship them out to be processed by somebody else. In that processing we are creating jobs in that other person’s economy and then the products for which we sent the ores abroad are made into finished products and those finished products are exported back to us,” he said.
On the energy sector’s financial position, he revealed that the administration assumed office with accumulated debt in the power sector estimated at US$1.5 billion.
He further noted that a US$500 million World Bank Partial Risk Guarantee, linked to payments to Italy’s Eni and its partners for gas supplied from the Sankofa Field, had been fully drawn down before his government returned to office.
That facility, he explained, has now been replenished through coordinated interventions by the energy and finance ministries.
“At the time we took over that World Bank guarantee had been drawn down to zero. Today, through the work of the Minister of Energy and the Minister of Finance, we have restored that World Bank guarantee fully to US$500 million. As a result they have also expanded the amount of gas they are giving us which we use to generate power,” he said.
Mahama also outlined new capital commitments in the upstream petroleum sector, highlighting expanded investments aimed at lifting production levels.
He said partners operating in the Jubilee Field have agreed to inject an additional US$2 billion to fund new drilling campaigns offshore Ghana.
He added that Eni would commit a further US$1.5 billion into the Offshore Cape Three Points project to boost oil and gas output.
“The Jubilee partners, we signed an agreement for them to invest another US$2 billion in drilling new wells offshore Ghana in order to increase the amount of oil and gas that we produce. We have also signed with ENI to invest another US$1.5 billion in the OCTP field to increase the amount of gas and oil that we produce,” he said.
Turning to legacy debts owed to independent power producers, the President said liabilities estimated at US$1.5 billion had been refinanced, with a structured repayment plan already in place.
“We have refinanced that debt, given them a payment plan and we have met every single payment to them. They too are happy and producing power and our power sector is stable,” he said.
