The tanker Theseus unloaded its cargo of Russian crude into storage tanks at the Tema oil refinery in Ghana over the weekend, having been anchored off the port since 24 February while awaiting clearance to dock.
Vessel tracking data monitored by Bloomberg shows that the vessel left its initial anchorage on Thursday morning and docked at the single mooring point on Friday afternoon. The SPM is connected to the refinery's storage tanks by a subsea pipeline.
The tanker left the SPM on Monday morning, its draught indicating that it had unloaded its cargo. It loaded about 600,000 barrels of crude from the Black Sea port of Novorossiysk in late January and is the first Russian shipment seen to the West African country in at least four years, according to data.
Ghana's National Petroleum Authority granted a delivery deadline for the cargo to be unloaded, but national security considerations delayed the process, according to people close to the matter. While the tanker was en route, the head of the NPA said the cargo would be blocked if it was bound for the country.
Permission was given for the tanker after it was claimed that the cargo came from Kazakhstan, one of the people said. A port agent's report for Novorossiysk and data from data intelligence companies Vortexa and Kpler showed it came from Russia.
The Tema refinery, Ghana's only major crude processing plant, has been closed for about two years, although the government has assured that it will resume this year.
The Accra-based Institute for Energy Security has identified Platon Gas Oil Ghana Ltd. as the buyer of the cargo. The company, which operates a small refinery adjacent to the refinery, has leased storage tanks from its larger neighbour, IES executive director Nana Amoasi VII said earlier in an interview with Ghana's Citi Newsroom. It would take Plato at least six months to process the crude, he added.