The explosion of a furnace at the Crude Distillation Unit (CDU) of the Tema Oil Refinery (TOR) could be a threat to fuel security, Institute for Energy Security (IES) has said.

In a statement signed by Richmond Rockson, a Principal Research Analyst, the IES said even though the cause of explosion is not immediately known, “the non-adherence to safety protocol and standard operating procedures, lack of adequate supervision, inexperience operating and production management personnel and complacency are many of the factors that could result in such an incident.”

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The new furnace was commissioned in mid-December 2016 and coincided with TOR’s receipt of it first indigenous crude oil from the Tweneboa-Enyera-Ntomme (TEN) field.

It has been supportive of production until it exploded internally at 10:40am on Thursday.

The IES believes the management of TOR, the National Petroleum Authority (NPA), the Ministry of Energy and the government, must immediately launch an investigation into the incident to unravel the cause of the blow-up.

It also asked the various agencies to take steps to restore capacity while preserving the remaining production capacity.

“Anything short of these could jeopardise the country’s fuel security, threaten jobs, push back the gains made so far by TOR, turn the refinery to a storage terminal again, and impact negativity on the country’s socio-economic growth,” IES said.

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The explosion of the furnace on Thursday is said to have occurred in the process of restarting the plant.

The Daily Graphic reports that the incident necessitated the emergency shutdown and suspension of production to allow for investigations into the incident.

There were no casualties.