Page 13 - DMEA Week 20 2020

DMEA REFINING DMEA
Morocco to use closed oil refinery for storage
MOROCCO
Morocco’s sole refinery shut down in 2015 because of unpaid debts.
MOROCCO plans to use the closed Samir oil refinery in its north for storing fuels, the local North Africa Post newspaper reported on May 17.
The 200,000 barrel per day (bpd) refin- ery, controlled by Saudi billionaire Moham- med al-Amoudi’s Corral Holdings, was shut down in 2015 over unpaid taxes. This left Morocco solely reliant on imported refined products.
The judge supervising the refinery’s liquida- tion has accepted a state offer to rent its storage facilities, the North Africa Post reported. These facilities can store up to 2mn cubic metres of fuels – enough to meet Morocco’s needs for 80 days, the newspaper claimed.
Morocco is looking to take advantage of low fuel prices to build up a supply reserve. The gov- ernment has called on private fuel importers to stockpile enough fuel for 60 days of demand, without result.
At the time of its liquidation, the Samir plant
owed more than MAD1.3bn ($130mn) in over- due taxes and had accumulated debts of over MAD44bn, according to Moroccan press. The government made several unsuccessful attempts to sell the plant to investors.
Samir union workers have previously opposed the refinery’s use for storage, instead demanding that the government nationalise the plant and restart production. After the state offer, however, they issued a statement saying they wel- comed the plant’s use as a fuel reserve, the North Africa Post said.
Morocco’s MYA Energy signed a deal with Russia’s state-controlled development bank VEB in October last year to construct a new 100,000 bpd refinery in northern Morocco, to end the country’s dependence on imports. Its capacity may be increased to 200,000 bpd at a later stage.
Morocco’s energy import bill reached MAD17.5bn in the first three months of this year, according to state statistics, down 4.8% from the same period of 2019. ™
Bahrain refining overhaul reaches halfway point
BAHRAIN
The Bahrain refinery’s capacity will rise from 267,000 to 360,000 bpd in 2022.
A $6bn upgrade project at the Bahrain oil refin- ery is now halfway complete, Bahraini Oil Min- ister Sheikh Mohammed bin Khalifa Al Khalifa announced on May 17.
Work at the Bahrain Petroleum Co. (BAPCO) plant is continuing on schedule despite the impact of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pan- demic, Al Khalifa said in a statement. The pro- ject is slated for completion in the third quarter, he said. Earlier the refinery’s management had projected a mid-2022 finish date.
The modernisation programme kicked off last year, and aims to increase the plant’s process- ing capacity from 267,000 to 360,000 barrels per day (bpd) and install new units for the produc- tion of cleaner, higher-value fuels.
The refinery runs primarily on Arabian Light crude that is piped from processing facilities in Abqaiq in Saudi Arabia, which clean and remove sand and sulphur from the oil. BAPCO and Saudi Aramco commissioned phase four of the A-B oil pipeline, taking total capacity up to
350,000 bpd.
Al Khalifa also drew attention to the recent
completion of Bahrain’s first LNG regasification terminal. The project, a decade in the making, is aimed at helping the cash-strapped Middle Eastern state overcome gas shortages, boasting a send-out capacity of 825mn cubic metres per year.
However, the cash-strapped Bahraini govern- ment is yet to announce a date for the terminal’s commercial launch, despite it recently achieving a technical commissioning milestone. Discus- sions with LNG suppliers continue, but no con- tracts have been finalised.
Bahrain may not need to import LNG in the long term, Al Khalifa said, after making several offshore gas discoveries in recent years. He said that serious talks were underway with Saudi Arabia and the rest of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) on establishing a network of gas pipelines in line Bahrain with the rest of the Gulf states.™
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