Tema Oil Refinery Ltd., Ghana’s sole crude processor, expects to boost capacity by 33% in two years after signing a contract to replace old equipment reported Bloomberg.

“We will be installing a new furnace valued at $7 million and do some retrofitting of various parts of the plant within 18 months,” Managing Director Ato Ampiah said on September 13 in an interview in the port city of Tema. “This will increase our production capacity to 60,000 (bbl.) barrels per day from the current 45,000.”

The company’s refinery has struggled because of a lack of credit and faulty equipment since 2009 said Bloomberg. The plant was repeatedly forced to shut, including an eight-month period that only ended in March after the government provided the state-owned plant with $30 million for repairs.

It now operates at 60% capacity, Ampiah told Bloomberg. The government has yet to pay the second tranche of a $67 million injection needed to retool operations and boost efficiency.

Ghana’s gasoline demand rose 43% to 993,000 metric tons in the three years to December 2012 and diesel gained 34% to 1.3 million tons, the National Petroleum Authority said to Bloomberg. Most of the country’s fuel needs are met with imports.