Ghana: TOR Account Flattened By Board Members

 

http://allafrica.com/stories/201308160605.html?viewall=1

 

Tema — Junior staff members of the Tema Oil Refinery (TOR) have called on the government to, as a matter of urgency, dissolve the seven-member Board of Directors of the company for inefficiency.

 

According to the workers, the board members lack the expertise and competence to handle a corporate entity like the nation's only oil refinery. They noted that the board members seemed to be interested in drawing fuel from the refinery and other filling stations outside the refinery, as well as take fat sitting allowances and bonuses without doing what is expected of them.

 

The workers alleged that between January and July this year, a whopping GH¢200,020.53 (¢2 billion old Ghana cedis) has been spent on the board members in sitting allowances, bonuses, fuel from TOR, and monthly fuel coupons for filling stations outside TOR.

 

"This amount excludes their lunch and lodging before, during, and after their meetings," the workers claimed. The breakdown of the figure is as follows: "Bonuses for the board members as at December, 2012 - GH¢43,333.33; sitting allowances from January to July, 2013 - GH¢103,349.00; fuel consumed by the board members at TOR filling station alone, from January to July 2013 - GH¢11,838.20, and monthly fuel coupons for the board members for filling stations outside TOR - GH¢41,500.00."

 

This came to light when the workers embarked upon a short but powerful agitation at the premises of the refinery on Tuesday, when members of the management and executive members of the senior staff union of TOR, and Union of Industries, Commerce and Finance (UNICOF) held a meeting to discuss the mandate of the workers to negotiate for salary increase.

 

The workers first converged within the walls of the company quietly observing what was going on at 13:00 hours. But when the meeting prolonged, the workers became agitated and started showing glimpses of impatience, shouting in the process.

 

Addressing the media after the meeting later in the night, Emmanuel Eduah Offoh, Chairman of the Junior Staff Union, which is the General Transport, Petroleum and Chemical Workers Union of TOR, said the reason for the agitation was the workers' mandate to bargain their salary increase for 2013.

He said, since January this year to date, they had been chasing management to come to the negotiation table to discuss their mandate for a salary increment, but were told that the board did not have the mandate to allow them do the negotiation.

 

Meanwhile, the board has approved a salary increment of 120% for the Managing Director of the refinery, Mr. Ato Ampiah, and backdated it to June, 2010, even though it claimed that it did not have the mandate to do so for the workers.

 

According to Mr. Eduah Offoh, the TOR Managing Director had since collected his back pay from June 2010 to date.

 

The Chairman of the Junior Staff Union disclosed that if, as a board, they had not been able to approve of the 2013 corporate budget for the company, as at August, then how were they running the refinery?

 

He explained that the workers were of the opinion that the Board had stabbed them in the back, because, in order for them to have a smooth negotiation process, the workers sacrificed all they had, including their lives, to ensure that they put the company in good shape before they talked about negotiation, but it looked as if the Board was not enthused with their gesture.

 

"As partners of the refinery, we decided to help put the refinery in shape, which, indeed, we have succeeded, so that when we get to the negotiation table, at least, they could see eye to eye with us. We did all these things, to the extent that we work in the plant without protective gears.

 

"We sacrificed our lives for this company, and now that we are here, this is what management is telling us - that they don't have anything for us. We will not agree to that. This is why we are calling on government to dissolve the board," he noted.

 

In the meantime, the management of the refinery is tightlipped over the issue, and has refused to comment on it.

Canada's Toxic Chemical Valley (Part 1/2)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bd_QgMc5B_s

ENI Agrees to Pay Mozambican Tax Bill

 

http://www.petroleumafrica.com/eni-agrees-to-pay-mozambican-tax-bill/

 

Italian firm ENI has agreed to pony up the $400 million in sales tax to the Mozambican government on the sale of a portion of its stake in Offshore Area 4 to Chinese firm CNPC.

 

ENI’s sale of nearly 30% of its Mozambican subsidiary to CNPC gives CNPC a 20% stake in its lucrative Area 4 offshore gas field.

 

The Italian firm is still the operator of Area 4 with a 50% stake.

 

ENI said it had also agreed to build a 75-MW power plant in Mozambique’s northern Cabo Delgado province, near where its massive natural gas discoveries were made. Its estimated the plant will cost around $75 million to construct.

Pipeline fire lights up sky in Ill.; no injuries

 

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/pipeline-fire-lights-sky-ill-112351795.html

 

ERIE, Ill. (AP) -- A fuel pipeline exploded beneath a western Illinois cornfield, sending flames hundreds of feet into the sky and leaving a 15-foot-deep crater before pipeline crews were able to stem the flow of fuel and bring the fire under control, authorities said.

 

Nobody was injured in the explosion, which was reported around 11:15 p.m. Monday near the town of Erie, 27 miles northeast of Davenport, Iowa. Dozens of residents were evacuated from their homes as a precaution and the flames could be seen for dozens of miles, fire officials said. Most residents were allowed to return by early Tuesday morning.

 

Residents reported hearing a loud blast, said Erie Fire Chief Doug Rutledge, who said the hole created by the explosion was about 20 feet wide and 40 feet long.

 

"It had a roar like a jet engine," with flames as high as 250 feet, Rutledge told the Daily Gazette in Sterling, Ill. "It was something else."

 

The pipeline was carrying a mixture of ethane and propane from Iowa City, Iowa, to a petrochemical plant in Morris, Ill., 62 miles southwest of Chicago, said Rick Rainey, spokesman for the pipeline's owner, Houston-based Enterprise Products Partners.

 

Enterprise Products workers were able to remotely turn off a valve to limit the gas flow to the site, fire officials said.

 

Rainey said the fuel did not spill, but either vaporized or burned off. He said it is too soon to say what caused the explosion, and that the company was investigating.

 

A spokesman for the U.S. Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration said that agency would investigate, and an inspector was en route to the explosion site. The investigation will include determining if the operator was in compliance with federal pipeline safety regulations.

 

An Illinois Environmental Protection Agency spokesman said officials there were aware of the blast and able to assist if needed, but were not directly involved in the investigation.

Mexico proposes private firms in oil industry

http://news.yahoo.com/mexico-proposes-private-firms-oil-industry-164057449.html

 

MEXICO CITY (AP) — Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto proposed on Monday lifting a decades-old ban on private companies investing in the state-run oil industry, a cornerstone of Mexico's national pride that's seen production plummet in recent decades.

 

The reform would allow profit-sharing contracts with private companies that have exploration know-how in deep water and other difficult areas that the state-owned oil company, Pemex, doesn't have. Such contracts are currently prohibited by the constitution, which would have to be changed.

 

The leftist Democratic Revolution Party says it won't support constitutional changes, but Pena Nieto's ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party and the conservative National Action Party have enough votes combined to secure the two-thirds majority need in the Senate to pass the change. They could do the same with the support of a small, allied party in the Chamber of Deputies.

 

The measure then would have to be approved by at least 17 of the country's 32 state legislatures.

"Mexicans will remain the sole beneficiaries of the country's oil profits," Pena Nieto said as he presented his proposal. "It's time to use all of our energy resources to move forward and transform Mexico."

 

Pena Nieto's administration offered virtually no details about how it envisioned private participation, and Energy Secretary Pedro Joaquin Coldwell refused to specify the maximum percentage of profits that could be shared. The apparent vagueness of the proposal raised uneasiness.

 

"This has to be carefully studied to see what they mean with this, and what percentage of the profits they would share," said Jesus Zambrano, leader of the leftist Democratic Revolution Party. "This kind of talk is the kind of thing they use when they want to pull the wool over our eyes."

 

Mexico's President Enrique Pena Nieto shows to the audience his proposal that would allow private fi …
 

Mexico City-based oil analyst David Shields said the private sector may be underwhelmed by the plan, which like a measure in 2008, appears to make only marginal changes.

 

"There are no specifics, and with no specifics it is not clear what is going to attract foreign investment," Shields said. "It's as if they opened the door a little bit in 2008 and now they're opening it another little bit, but it's a long way to go before it's open" in the view of private oil companies.

He said the companies want the opportunity to share in the actual oil found and to add oil reserves to their own corporate books. Neither would be permitted under Pena Nieto's proposal.

 

Pena Nieto emphasized an accompanying measure that would allow private companies to produce and sell electricity for home and business use. He said that would lower consumer prices in a country where people earn far less but pay about 25 percent more for electricity than in many other countries.

Pena Nieto said private companies would be able to bid for profit-sharing contracts to explore and extract oil, and could also apply for permits for refining and transportation.

 

Mexico's oil fields are drying up and Pemex lacks the equipment to explore for new reserves in deep water or to extract shale gas. Production has plunged about 25 percent over the last decade, and a country that was once a significant oil power could become a net energy importer in a few years unless new production is brought online.

 

Mexico produces about 2.5 million barrels a day, Pena Nieto said, placing the country among the world's top 10 producers, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. He said his proposal would boost Pemex production to 3 million barrels a day by 2018 and 3.5 million by 2025.

Mexico's President Enrique Pena Nieto, right, shows to the audience his proposal that would allow pr …
 

Mexico sends 85 percent of its oil exports to the United States and regularly ranks among the top foreign sources of oil used in the U.S.

 

The energy secretary said that under the proposal private firms could even build private oil pipelines, although in a country where fuel thieves drill into Pemex pipelines thousands of times each year, it's not clear how many companies would want to invest in that market.

 

Joaquin Coldwell said the pipeline problem is a clear example of the limits of Mexico's current system: Because only Pemex is allowed to build pipelines, they're old and insufficient. "So we have to transport oil in tanker trucks. The only thing is, it costs three times as much," he said.

 

He said Pemex's bloated work force would suffer no cuts as the company is reorganized into two main divisions — one for exploration and production, the other for refining, petrochemicals and distribution.

 

Joaquin Coldwell said Mexico hasn't talked about the changes with big oil companies.

 

Pushing through the proposal without the left's support could come with big political costs: a 2012 poll of 2,400 Mexicans by the Center for Economic Research and Teaching said 65 percent opposed any foreign investment in the oil industry. The poll by the Mexico City-based think tank had a margin of error of two percentage points.

 

When Pena Nieto's predecessor, Felipe Calderon, tried a similar overhaul in 2008, thousands marched in the streets and Democratic Revolution legislators padlocked the doors of Congress, camping out in the chambers in protest. The watered-down bill that resulted failed to solve Pemex's underlying problems of inefficiency and declining production.

 

Mexico's President Enrique Pena Nieto, right, greets the audience as his Interior Secretary Miguel A …
 

The new proposal also threatens to split the Pact for Mexico, the de facto alliance of all three major parties that Pena Nieto is depending on to get major reforms passed.

 

Pena Nieto's Institutional Revolutionary Party, the PRI, and Zambrano's Democratic Revolution both accused each other of being conservative and blocking Mexico's march toward the future.

 

"These reforms do the country no good. They are regressive, right-wing, conservative and pro-privatization," said Zambrano.

 

Manlio Fabio Beltrones, leader of Pena Nieto's party in the Chamber of Deputies, countered: "This is a progressive, cutting-edge reform that seeks to leave behind any conservative attitudes."

 

The fight centered over Pena Nieto's use of Lazaro Cardenas, the beloved former president who nationalized the oil industry in 1938, to pitch the reform. Cardenas actually allowed some private contracts, but the left called the president's mention of Cardenas "an insult."

 

At present, Mexican law limits private companies to straight contractual work with incentive bonuses.

 

Pemex already allows private contractors to do tasks such as operate drills and wells, perform maintenance and provide supplies. But those "integrated contracts" have proven so unappealing to investors that no one bid on half the oil field blocks near Mexico's Gulf Coast that Pemex put up for auction in July.

SIC Board Members resign for fear of being sacked

Chief Executive Officer of Tema Oil Refinery

Ato Ampiah

 

http://www.ghanaweb.com/GhanaHomePage/NewsArchive/artikel.php?ID=282219

 

The Board Chairman of State Insurance Company (SIC), Max Cobbinah, together with five other board members have resigned their posts for fear of being sacked by the president.

They announced their decision at the insurance firm’s recent annual general meeting held in Accra.

The other five board members that have resigned their posts include the Chief Executive Officer of Tema Oil Refinery, Ato Ampiah, Kingsley Awuah-Darko, Yvonne Osei Tutu, Dr. Vitus Anaab-Bisi and Dr Kofi Amoah, the largest individual shareholder who was representing the interest of minority shareholders.

Recently, The Independent reported that President Mahama would soon appoint new board members of some state institutions particularly SIC and Merchant Bank because of the poor state of the two firms.

The workers of SIC had recently called for the resignation of their board chairman else they will go on a demonstration. Mr Cobbinah’s resignation will, therefore, come as a big relief to the workers.

President Mahama, a couple of weeks ago, announced new directors for SSNIT, ADB and the Ghana Statistical Service.

MODEC takes another VLCC

 

http://www.tankeroperator.com/ViewNews.aspx?NewsID=4615

 

Japanese engineering concern MODEC is to convert the former Tanker Pacific managed VLCC ‘Centennial J’ into an FPSO.

 

Once converted, the 1997-built vessel will capable of handling 80,000 barrels of oil per day, plus 170 MM standard cu ft of gas per day and will have a storage capacity of 1.7 mill barrels of oil.

 

Scheduled for delivery in 2016, the FPSO will be installed in the Tweneboa, Enyenra, and Ntomme (TEN) fields in Ghana’s Deepwater Tano contract area in water depth averaging 1,500 m.

 

The contract was awarded by Tullow Ghana, a wholly owned subsidiary of Tullow Oil and calls for the supply, charter and lease, operations and maintenance of the FPSO.

 

This is the second FPSO that MODEC will supply and operate in Ghana for Tullow, following the ‘FPSO Kwame Nkrumah MV21’, which is moored in the Jubilee Field development, a contract which was awarded in 2008.