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Completion nears on South

Sudan refinery work

SOUTH SUDAN SOUTH Sudanese NOC Nile Petroleum Corp. products. There are plans in place to export
(Nilepet) announced last week that it is nearing refined products to neighbouring Ethiopia,
completion on work to rehabilitate the 5,000 which currently relies on imports of just under
barrel per day (bpd) Bentiu oil refinery in the 2bn litres per year.
country. Work was also ongoing on a 17,000 bpd refin-
The director-general of Nilepet’s Down- ery in Tangrial, Upper Nile State in 2013, and it is
stream Directorate, James Loteka Yugusuk, said presumed that this unit is included in the master
on August 14 that completion of the work would plan.
allow South Sudan to reduce fuel imports. The DMEA understands that restoration works
Bentiu facility in oil-rich northern Unity State began at Bentiu in December 2018, but relied
was damaged during conflict that broke out in on government support to minimise risk from
December 2013. According to Safinat, the main ongoing conflict, and Juba had anticipated the
investor in Bentiu, pre-commissioning and pro- facility to resume operations last year.
duction began in 2014, although it was subse- In 2018, local firm Trinity Energy won a con-
quently damaged during military action. tract to build an oil refinery near the Paloich oil-
The refinery’s rehabilitation falls under field, though little has been heard since.
Nilepet’s strategic 5-year master plan, which also To the north, Sudan is home to the 90,000 bpd
involves the construction of five refineries close Khartoum refinery which, according to CITAC,
to the country’s oilfields. This is expected to align will undergo maintenance in mid-September,
with previous plans to expand South Sudan’s lasting around 75 days. Khartoum is the only
total refining capacity to more than 100,000 bpd, active refinery in Sudan following the closure
though given the situation, Downstream MEA and decommissioning of the Port Sudan facility
(DMEA) sees such a target as hugely ambitious. in 2013.
Yugusuk noted that Juba currently relies on However, Port Sudan is the location of the
oil revenues for around 80% of its budget, add- planned 200,000 bpd, Red Sea Coast refinery
ing that the full operation of the refining net- proposed by Russian state-owned exploration
work would herald an era of diversified exports, firm Rosgeologia. No timeline for work on this
returning hard currency from selling refined facility has yet been announced.™

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