Page 8 - AfrOil Week 49 2019
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AfrOil INVESTMENT AfrOil
GUINEA
AFRICA Finance Corp. (AFC) has announced an agreement with Switzerland-based Brahms Oil Refineries to finance and develop a refinery and crude storage facility in Kamsar, on Guinea’s north-western coast.
According to a joint statement, the project will include a 12,000 barrel per day (bpd) mod- ular refinery as well as storage capacity of 76,000 cubic metres of crude oil and 114,200 cubic metres of refined products, with financial close anticipated in 2020.
At present, Guinea lacks any refining capac- ity and the unit is expected to cater for around 33% of the country’s refined product require- ments, thereby reducing Conakry’s reliance on imports.
Guinea has no indigenous oil production and the facility will run on imported crude, which will be processed into diesel, gasoline and jet fuel for the local market.
Amadou Wadda, senior director of AFC’s project development and technical solutions team, said that “the Brahms refinery project will have a tremendous impact [on] the coun- try’s development.”
Meanwhile, CEO of Brahms Oil Refineries Daouda Fall said: “To partner with AFC is a great milestone and brings us one step closer to our goal of reaching financial close in early 2020 and kick-starting construction.”
The project has been on the drawing board since 2011, when Brahms registered the local project company, Societe de Raffi- nage Guineenne. Around two years later, it appointed the then-independent US-based Foster Wheeler to carry out feasibility studies and engineering services, with the former com- pleted in June 2014.
A law setting out investment terms was signed with Conakry a year later and ratified by Parliament in January 2016, finally prompting a slew of key contract awards.
In January 2017, US-based WSP Group was appointed to carry out a geotechnical investiga- tion of the site, the results of which were deliv- ered to Brahms in April. Meanwhile, France’s Axens won the technology supply package and submitted a final report on the proposed con- figuration to SNC in June, paving the way for
movement on the main contract.
In July that year, Canada’s SNC Lavalin
announced the award of a front-end engineer- ing and design (FEED) and engineering, pro- curement and construction (EPC) contract on a 10,000 bpd modular refinery planned by Brahms at Kamsar.
SNC subsidiary Kentz was initially selected to carry out FEED work in August 2016 and SNC’s latest statement anticipated a final invest- ment decision (FID) by the developer by the end of Q3 2017. This was based on the Cana- dian firm’s cost estimate, and a phased con- version to an EPC contract is envisaged being agreed thereafter.
The Toronto-listed firm’s announcement outlined the scope of the current phase of work, comprising project management, preliminary engineering and procurement, estimation ser- vices and preparation of an EPC execution plan covering a tank farm and marine works as well as the refinery itself.
An obscure UK-based firm identified as Herman Trading announced plans in 2011 for a greenfield refinery further down the coast at Boffa – with final capacity envisaged at 150,000 bpd and total costs estimated at $2bn. The scheme was never executed.
The French company is not terribly popular in Algeria, a former French colony, and Arkab said earlier that the government would never approve the deal.
Anadarko’s Algerian assets are currently yielding around 260,000 barrels per day (bpd) of oil, equivalent to slightly more than 25% of the country’s total output. The company has been working at Ourhoud, a huge oilfield that has already yielded more than 1bn barrels of oil to date, and at the HBNS and El Merk blocks in
the Sahara Desert.
This was not the first time that Arkab had
raised the possibility of pre-empting the sale of Anadarko’s assets to Total. The minister made statements to this effect in May but then walked back from them, saying that Algiers was ready to seek a compromise as long as it could ensure protection for Sonatrach’s interests. The NOC “ needs to maintain good ties with foreign partners to develop its programmes,” Arkab explained.
AFC signs Guinean downstream deal
Africa Finance Corp. has teamed up with Brahms Oil Refineries (Photo: AFC)
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w w w . N E W S B A S E . c o m Week 48 11•December•2019
