Page 14 - DMEA Week 45

DMEA REFINING DMEA

Cameroon unveils plan for

new refinery near Kribi

CAMEROON THE government of Cameroon intends to build build. It said in the strategy document that it
a new refinery to compensate for the loss of the hoped to establish a public-private partner-
The government of country’s only oil-processing plant, which has ship (PPP) for the project but did not name any
Cameroon intends to been out of service for more than a year. potential partners.
build a new refinery to In its National Development Strategy 2020- The new facility will help make up for the
compensate for the loss 2030 document, the government indicated that suspension of operations at Cameroon’s only
of the country’s only oil- it had already drawn up plans for the construc- existing refinery – the Sonara plant, located in
processing plant, which tion of a refinery with a throughput capacity of the port of Limbé in the Sud-Ouest region. The
has been out of service 5mn tonnes per year (tpy), equivalent to 100,000 facility has been idle since May 31, 2019, when it
for more than a year. barrels per day (bpd). The facility will be built sustained massive damage in a fire.
near Kribi, a deepwater port in the Sud region, The Sonara refinery benefited from its loca-
it said. tion in Limbé, which is the main hub of the coun-
The document explained that the new try’s oil industry. Cameroonian officials hope
refinery would be capable of serving domestic that the new plant will benefit similarly from its
and regional markets. The plant will sell fuel proximity to facilities built for an LNG project.
to members of the Economic and Monetary Kribi is in the vicinity of a natural gas production
Community of Central Africa (CEMAC), a platform and a converted LNG tanker – the Hilli
regional grouping that includes Central Episeyo, owned by Bermuda-registered Golar
African Republic, Chad, Republic of Congo, LNG – that is now serving as a floating LNG
Equatorial Guinea and Gabon, as well as (FLNG) vessel. The ship may eventually be able
Cameroon, it said. to turn out up to 1.2mn tpy of LNG. It is already
Cameroon’s government has not said how being used to process limited amounts of natural
much the oil-processing plant might cost to gas and gas condensate. ™

Top Israeli refiner swings

to loss in Q3

ISRAEL ISRAEL’S Oil Refineries (ORL) suffered a loss in ORL owns a 197,000 barrel per day (bpd)
the third quarter amid weaker demand as a result refinery in Haifa, Israel’s largest. In addition to
The owner of Israel’s of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, it common fuels, it also produces polymers and
second-biggest refinery said on November 4. aromatics.
has also been hit hard ORL, the country’s biggest refining and pet- Israel’s second-biggest refinery is a 95,000
by the pandemic. rochemicals company, booked a $50mn loss in bpd plant in Ashdod, owned by local fuel sup-
the three months ending September 30, versus a plier Paz Oil. Paz has also been hit hard by the
$7mn profit a year earlier. Its revenues were 39% pandemic, reporting a threefold year-on-year
lower at $990mn. decline in adjusted net income in the second
The groups’ adjusted refining margin shrank quarter.
to just $0.3 per barrel in the third quarter, versus Paz reportedly invited Azerbaijan’s SOCAR
$6.3 a year earlier. to buy the Ashdod refinery earlier this year,
Despite the pandemic, ORL said it was still although the latter told the press in August that
able to produce its essential products and avoid it was not considering such an investment. ™
furloughs. However, it continued to reduce costs
in the period and began implementing a retire-
ment plan.
ORL noted it expected to save as much as
$45mn from gas purchases in 2021, and had
entered into a new fuel supply deal with an
unnamed foreign customer for deliveries start-
ing in 2021. That customer has pledged to make
a down-payment of between $80 and $100mn,
depending on oil prices.

P14 www. NEWSBASE .com Week 45 12•November•2020