New refinery projects and planned upgrades highlight the outlook for refineries in Africa for 2019. Countries where planned upgrades feature include Nigeria, Angola, Ghana, Cameroon, and Algeria
Nigeria’s Warri refinery, along with two Port Harcourt refineries, were shut early October 2018 for what was termed turnaround maintenance. The plants were due to restart by the end of October. Thought the Warri refinery restarted, the upgrade work was not carried out. For the two Port Harcourt plants, they remain offline with no indication when they will restart. However, Nigeria’s state oil company, Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) is still in talks with prospective financiers to carry out major overhaul of its four ailing refineries
Angola’s Luanda refinery remains completely shut down for maintenance works that started in October 2018. The works were originally expected to take around 45-60 days to complete but the refinery still has not come back online again. Sonangol, Angola’s state oil company is also planning to build a fluid catalytic cracker at the Luanda refinery, with the unit expected to come online mid-2021.
Ghana’s only oil refinery Tem has been offline since November 29, 2018 as it has run through its reserves of crude. Prior to the recent shutdown, the plant was running at 28,000 b/d and was processing Nigerian crude.
Cameroon’s sole refinery, Limbe is still not operational following its maintenance and upgrade. Maintenance started in April 2018 and it is meant to include increasing the refinery’s capacity to 72,000 b/d from 45,000 b/d.
Sonatrach, Algeria’s state oil company will aim to complete the upgrade of its Algiers refinery by early 2019 while Zambia’s Indeni refinery has been looking for an equity partner as it seeks to boost capacity.
The new projects are expected to come online in Nigeria, Algeria and South Sudan.
The 650,000 b/d Dangote refinery in Nigeria has made considerable progress with projection that it will be commissioned in 2020. Already, it has taken delivery of one of the major components of its refinery equipment, the Regenerator for the Residual Fluid Catalytic Cracker (RFCC) which is widely used to convert the high-boiling, high-molecular weight hydrocarbon fractions of petroleum crude oils into more valuable gasoline, olefinic gases, and other products.
South Sudan’s first oil refinery is expected to be operational by January 2019 as the world’s newest nation hopes to reduce its reliance on imports. Russia’s Safinat Caspian Oil Refining Company is building the refinery near the oil fields in Unity State, which will have an 8,000 b/d capacity.
Angola’s Sonangol revived plans for its Lobito refinery project, saying it will build a 200,000 b/d plant in the coastal city by 2022 while Ghana’s ministry of energy is in the process of submitting a proposal to build a new refinery in Tema.
Meanwhile, Uganda signed an agreement with a consortium to build and operate a 60,000 b/d refinery in the west of the country. The $4 billion facility is expected to process 30,000 b/d of crude initially, before its capacity doubles in the second phase of development. The project was expected to come on stream by 2020. Also Sonatrach said it received seven technical offers from international companies or groups for the realization of the new Hassi Messaoud oil refinery in eastern Algeria.
FRANK UZUEGBUNAM
