Page 17 - AfrOil Week 03 2021

AfrOil PERFORMANCE AfrOil

In the meantime, he said, the government is refining capacity of about 500,000 bpd. It was
urging consumers to avoid hoarding and panic referring to the 120,000 barrel per day (bpd) bpd
buying. facility owned by Engen Holdings, an affiliate of
Masire was speaking not long after Citac, a Malaysia’s Petronas, in Durban and the 100,000
UK-based consultancy that monitors Africa’s bpd refinery in Cape Town owned by Astron
downstream sector, said it did not expect to see Energy, a unit of the Anglo-Swiss commodities
the idle South African refineries return to full trading firm Glencore.
capacity until 2022. These two plants, Citac Botswana has traditionally relied on South
noted, account for 43% of the country’s total Africa for most of its fuel supplies. ™

Khartoum, Juba team up to hike production

SUDAN/SOUTH SUDAN SOUTH Sudan has agreed to accept assistance The deal is also expected to benefit Sudan,
from its northern neighbour Sudan as it works which currently uses South Sudanese crude as
to increase production rates at oilfields in the feedstock for the El Obeid topping plant, a sim-
northern part of the country. ple refinery located in North Kordofan State.
The two countries signed an agreement to That is, if Sudan’s help causes output levels to rise
this effect last week, during a meeting of the
joint technical committee formed by the two
countries’ oil ministries. The document calls
for the parties to set up a co-ordination office to
promote and facilitate bilateral co-operation. It
also outlines plans for establishing a joint com-
pany that will conduct seismic surveys in South
Sudan, analyse the data collected and share
information between the two sides.
As of press time, it was not clear whether
Khartoum and Juba had identified any invest-
ment targets for the joint company. But Awow
Daniel Chuang, the undersecretary of South Undersecretaries Hamid Suliman Hamid (L) of Sudan and Awow Daniel
Sudan’s Ministry of Petroleum, said that his Chuang (R) of South Sudan met last week (Image: The City Review)
country hoped Sudan’s assistance would allow
it to raise crude oil production from 170,000 in South Sudan, the latter country will be able to
barrels per day to 300,000 bpd within the next deliver more oil to the El Obeid refinery.
few years. According to press reports, Khartoum has
“We have discussed issues related to the pledged to help Juba resolve logistical challenges
production increase because we know that pro- related to oil production. It has also said it will
duction has dropped and those challenges are sign a draft agreement that provides for Sudan
technical in nature,” he commented. “Current to offer training to South Sudanese technical
production is between 165,000 [and] 170,000 engineers for the purposes of improving oil-
bpd, but we want to increase it to 300,000 bpd field management, increasing crude yields and
within two to three years from 2021.” restarting production at idle sites. ™

POLICY
Guinea-Bissau confirms negotiations

with Senegal on sharing of joint fields

GUINEA-BISSAU UMARO Sissoco Embaló, the president of between the two countries.
Guinea-Bissau, said last week that his adminis- Speaking at a press conference, Embaló con-
tration was in negotiations with the government firmed earlier Senegalese press reports asserting
of Senegal on the joint development of oil and that he had been discussing the matter with his
gas discoveries straddling the maritime border Senegalese counterpart, Macky Sall.

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