Page 13 - DMEA Week 28 2021

DMEA REFINING DMEA

Bentiu refinery

ramps up to capacity

AFRICA THE Bentiu joint venture (JV) between South itself as a reliable supplier of residual fuel oil for
Sudanese NOC Nilepet and Russia’s Rafinat is the domestic market.
working to increase throughput at its refinery “We have the issue of power, and you know
near Juba in the African country’s Unity State. this product is mainly used for power genera-
The announcement was made by Puot Kang tion,” he said.
Chol, South Sudan’s Petroleum Minister, who “Our aim ... is to tell the world that we are able
said that increasing the processing rate at the and we managed, despite the political situation
refinery will allow for refined petroleum prod- we have been going through. South Sudan is here
ucts to be supplied to neighbouring countries. to provide you with heavy fuel oil at any time you
The refinery, which was brought into oper- request it.”
ation in March, has a nameplate throughput The Bentiu refinery receives feedstock from
capacity of 10,000 barrels per day, but has until Greater Pioneer Operating Co. (GPOC), the
now only been running at 3,000 bpd. The news consortium that is developing Blocks 1, 2 and
marks a significant achievement for Bentiu, 4 in the Ruweng autonomous area, which lies
which began work on the refinery in 2013, but north of Unity State.
start-up was delayed by the country’s civil war, Malong noted that the JV had experienced
which resulted in damage. some difficulties with respect to ensuring ade-
In March, Yak Malong, Nilepet’s deputy man- quate deliveries of feedstock to the new plant.
aging director for downstream operations, told “Yes, there are challenges. One of the challenges
reporters that the plant had cost about $100mn is transportation and storage capacity. Nilepet is
to build and had increased South Sudan’s oil pro- doing well and has been preparing to face this
cessing capacity to 127,000 bpd. situation,” he said, without elaborating.
Malong went on to say that Juba had author- Bentiu was able to begin test production in
ised Bentiu to build the refinery because it hoped 2014. However, South Sudan’s civil war pre-
that bringing more refined fuels to the domestic vented it from starting commercial operations
market would lead to a decline in prices. “We – and also resulted in damage to the facility.
have come to the market to reduce the high The joint venture initiated a restoration pro-
prices of fuel,” he was quoted as saying by Radio gramme in 2018, but work has proceeded slowly.
Tamazuj. As a result, Bentiu was not able to realise the
At the time he said that the refinery was South Sudanese government’s hopes of bringing
due to begin producing diesel, as well as small the refinery on stream in 2019. Further delays
amounts of gasoline, in the near future, but to were caused last year by travel restrictions amid
begin with, its focus would be on establishing the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.™

Week 28 15•July•2021 www. NEWSBASE .com P13