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Malabo taps Vfuels for refinery study
E GUINEA
THE government of Equatorial Guinea and Marathon Oil (US) have chosen a contractor for a study of plans to construct a modular oil refinery.
The Equatoguinean Ministry of Mines and Hydrocarbons (MMH) said last week that it had joined with Marathon, its strategic partner, in naming Houston-based Vfuels to carry out the study. The contract provides for Vfuels to pro- vide engineering and design services for a 5,000 barrel per day (bpd) refinery in Punta Europa on Bioko Island. The proposed plant would produce petroleum products for domestic consumption.
MMH and Marathon have not yet revealed the value of the contract. They have indicated, though, that they expect Vfuels to complete the study within 12 weeks.
The refinery will be built on the site of a meth- anol plant owned by Atlantic Methanol Produc- tion Co. Last December, MMH issued orders for the dismantling of the facility in preparation for its conversion into a modular oil-processing plant. The following month, it struck an agree- ment with Marathon on a study of the modular refining project and a separate study of metha- nol-based gasoline and its derivatives.
Marathon owns a 45% stake in Atlantic
Methanol Production Co. The remaining equity in the plant is split between Noble Energy (US), with 45%, and Equatorial Guinea’s state-owned natural gas company Sociedad Nacional de Gas de GE (Sonagas), with 10%.
Gabriel Mbaga Obiang Lima, the head of MMH, noted last week that the refinery project fell within the framework of the Equatoguinean government’s Year of Investment 2020 initiative. The programme also includes plans to seek fund- ing for methanol-related projects and the con- struction of storage facilities on the country’s continental territory, he said.
These projects will help Equatorial Guinea ensure adequate supplies of high-quality fuel to the domestic market, he added. “This is an important step when it comes to implement- ing this project with an important goal to pre- vent stock-outs and provide refined products of higher quality to economic operators and the general public,” he commented.
When finished, the refinery will be part of the Punta Europa oil and gas complex near Malabo, the capital of Equatorial Guinea. The complex also includes a gas liquefaction plant that turns out LNG, gas-processing facilities and a gas-fired thermal power plant (TPP).™
Sonangol strikes deal on use of Pumangol fuel storage facilityfuel storage facility
ANGOLA
ANGOLA’S national oil company (NOC) Sonangol is working with Pumangol, its joint venture with the Singapore-based commodities trader Trafigura, to establish a national petro- leum product reserve.
Sonangol said in a statement last week that it had struck an agreement with Pumangol on the project in mid-April. The document provides for the NOC to use Pumangol’s terminal facility in Luanda to store refined fuel. It states that Sonan- gol may use up to 100% of the terminal’s capacity, which stands at 200,000 cubic metres, as well as the joint venture’s logistical assets.
The parties are already implementing the agreement. On April 21, Sonangol’s Girassol vessel unloaded its first cargo at the terminal.
The NOC did not say exactly how much fuel the Girassol had delivered to the terminal. It did stress, though, that the agreement would help Sonangol and Pumangol expand their ties and work together to ensure adequate supplies of fuel to Angola’s domestic market.
The parties are using Pumangol’s Fishing
Port terminal, which has been in operation since 2017. The terminal is connected to a conven- tional buoy mooring (CBM) system, the largest facility of its kind in the world, to berth tankers that are loading or off-loading petroleum prod- ucts in Luanda.
Both Pumangol and Sonangol are major play- ers on Angola’s domestic motor fuel market.
The NOC owns more than 40% of the coun- try’s filling stations, while the joint venture has about 7% of the total. (Pumangol is also engaged in the distribution of heavier products such as asphalt and bitumen.) Sonangol has said that it wants to expand its storage capacity in order to improve Angola’s energy security. It has been working to build a new terminal at Barra do Dande in Bengo Province since 2013, but the facility is not yet finished.
The terminal’s storage capacity was initially set at 641,500 cubic metres but will eventually reach 1.2mn cubic metres. The price tag for the project has been estimated at $1bn. ™
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