Tribute to the late William Sakyi Parker
The unexpected news of the death of Mr William Sakyi Parker on Monday, August 24, 2015 was passed on to me by a former colleague, Mr Emmanuel Quartey, who was the Production, Planning and Control Manager during W.S. Parker’s tenure at the Tema Oil Refinery (TOR). Emmanuel’s SMS message read as follows:
“OBITUARY: Mr William Sakyi Parker, ex-Managing Director of TOR died yesterday, aged 84. A rare executive breed, he was a class act above those before and after him in the TOR MD’s office. He earned my deep respect as an Executive who understood the dynamics of the petroleum market. May the good Lord keep and protect him.”
This was an apt epitaph of Willie Parker as he was affectionately called, and Emmanuel Quartey knew that I shared similar sentiments of our late boss. It is an incontrovertible fact that W.S. Parker was a colossus at TOR during his 12-year tenure as the Chief Executive from October 1988 to June 2000.
Not only
W.S. Parker was one of Ghana’s most respected experts in the Oil and Gas Industry. Indeed, he was the doyen of Ghana’s downstream petroleum industry. As a young engineer at Shell, he was a member of the special team of experts who supervised the offloading of the first cargo of crude oil from the Tema Harbour to the crude oil tanks in the “newly” commissioned “GHAIP” Refinery in August 1963.
One of his major achievements at Shell was the 1987 merger between Shell Ghana Limited and Texaco Ghana Limited which propelled Shell to the leadership position of Ghana’s downstream petroleum industry and ended Texaco’s oil trading activities in Ghana.
Achievements at TOR
It was W.S. Parker who increased the refinery’s crude oil processing capacity to 60 per cent, i.e. from a daily processing of 28,000 barrels per stream day to 45,000 barrels per stream day (an annual processing of 1.25 million tonnes to 2 million tonnes), following the completion of the first phase of the refinery’s expansion project in 1998.
It was W.S. Parker who, on February 25, 1999, concluded TOR’s long standing project finance negotiations with Samsung Corporation, in Seoul, the capital of South Korea, for the financing, procurement and installation of the USD 300 million Residual Fluid Catalytic Cracker Plant (RFCC) at TOR. The installation of the RFCC plant enabled the refinery to convert the 30 per cent low value residual fuel oil from each processing cycle of the crude distillation unit (CDU) into high value finished products, gasoline (ie. petrol) and liquefied petroleum gas (LPG). The installation of the RFCC plant transformed TOR from a simple hydroskimming refinery to a modern refinery complex comprising: a crude distillation unit (CDU), a premium former for converting virgin naphtha into gasoline and an RFCC plant.
He increased fuel storage Capacity
It was W.S. Parker who significantly increased the fuel storage capacity of the refinery by building new state-of-the-art storage tanks for crude oil, LPG and Jet Fuel. In order to meet the country’s increased demand for LPG and jet fuel, he successfully negotiated a deal with the international engineering company, Motherwell Bridge Limited of Scotland, under which the latter built three new 2,500m³ LPG spherical tanks and three new Aviation Turbine Kerosene (ATK) tanks at TOR.
It was W.S. Parker who initiated and implemented a staff house ownership scheme at the TOR to enable each member of staff own his or her own house. Well over 200 members of staff benefited from the scheme. First, he weaned staff then occupying company flats and houses (from which they would have been evicted on their retirement) away from their rented “comfort zones” by selling to them such company property.
Second, he managed to procure large stretches of land in Tema and adjoining areas and commenced the construction of various types of staff-owned houses. For the financing of the staff house ownership project, he structured a staff mortgage finance deal with the Home Finance Company Limited, then headed by Mrs Stephanie Ansah. Like most of my colleagues at TOR, I am a beneficiary of W.S. Parker’s staff house ownership scheme for which we should be eternally grateful.
It was W.S. Parker who completed TOR’s eight-storey Administration Tower which still dominates Tema’s skyline. The construction of the administration block began with Parker’s predecessor, the late Mr A.Q. Kyiamah, who built the foundation up to the 4th floor. The remaining four floors were completed by W.S. Parker.
It was W.S. Parker who commenced the outsourcing of TOR’s non-core activities such as: - onsite motor vehicle maintenance, onsite tank repairs, onsite masonry activities etc. The positive effect of the outsourcing policy was to enable the company to concentrate on its core business of crude oil refining. The policy effectively rationalised TOR’s staff structure, thus, leading to a significant reduction in staff payroll costs.
Assistance to redundant staff
In order to ameliorate the plight of the redundant staff arising from the rationalisation exercise, he persuaded them to be self-employed and assisted them to form limited liability companies in their areas of expertise. He subsequently awarded them appropriate contracts at TOR as and when necessary. This was a win-win situation for the refinery and the redundant staff.
It was W.S. Parker who made it commercially viable for the newly incorporated Ghanaian or local Oil Marketing Companies such as Allied Oil, Star Oil, Glory Oil, Petrol Ghana, Tropic Oil, Sonnidom Energy, Havila Oil and other companies to commence oil trading in the downstream petroleum industry, hitherto monopolised by the following multinational oil marketing companies: Shell, Texaco, Elf, Total, Mobil, AGIP and British Petroleum (BP).
Although the Energy Commission Act of 1997 (Act 541) opened up the downstream petroleum industry to local participation, the newly incorporated local companies were not financially strong to lift fuel from TOR. They could not easily obtain the requisite banking facilities to commence trading because of stringent bankers’ terms and conditions of business. However, in his determination to break the expatriate stranglehold of the industry, W.S. Parker extended unsecured trade credit facilities to the local oil marketing companies to enable them to commence fuel liftings from the loading gantries at TOR.
Indeed, as my former colleague Emmanuel Quartey rightly observed in his “Obituary”, Willie Parker was “a rare executive breed, a class act above those before and after him in the TOR Managing Director’s office…” In a sad moment like this, I can only soliloquise like Macbeth (in Shakespeare’s “Macbeth”) when his wife’s death was announced to him.
“Life is but a walking shadow, a poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage and then is heard no more.”
Yes, Willie Parker loomed large on the stage of Ghana’s downstream oil industry. Yes, he will be heard no more. However, his name will remain indelible in the future history books of Ghana’s Oil and Gas Industry.
To his dear wife Esther, his children Thomas, Louisa, Philomena and Solomon, may God grant them strength and fortitude in their period of mournful sorrow. May he rest in perfect peace.
The writer is Otumfuo’s Akomforehene
