Page 12 - AfrOil Week 23

AfrOil PoliCy AfrOil Luanda
of this broader project centres on the planned Lobito re nery in Benguela province.
Sonangol reported that 68 companies or con- sortia had expressed an interest in carrying out the construction of either Cabinda or Lobito: this was cut down to seven bidders for each re nery.
No award has yet been made for Lobito, but Eni signed a wide-ranging deal with Sonangol in November last year that would see the Italian firm provide technical assistance to improve e ciency at the Luanda unit, as well as support- ing the development of the Lobito and Cabinda facilities.
Fellow Italian firm Maire Tecnimont announced on June 6 that its subsidiary KT – Kinetics Technology – had been awarded an EPC contract by Eni’s local arm, relating to the Luanda unit.
e US$200 million contract includes EPC activities relating to two re ning process units – the naphtha hydrotreater, which includes naph- tha splitting, and the catalytic reformer. The scope also includes some utilities and o sites, as
Angolan President Joao Lourenco
well as integration with the existing facility.
The project envisages increasing gasoline production from the re nery from 2,000 bpd to 8,000 bpd by mid-2021, with output to be both higher quality and more environmentally
friendly.
long lead for lobito
The Lobito plans have been on the drawing board since the turn of the century, with costs gradually escalating to recent estimates of more than US$8 billion.
Prospective investors were invited in Novem- ber to express interest in development of the planned 200,000-bpd high-conversion Sonaref facility at the south coast site in Benguela prov- ince, as well as the smaller Cabinda unit.
BP, Eni and Total have all previously held talks with Luanda about possible investment, and the Italian rm agreed in late 2015 to review the plans.
A deal signed nearly a decade earlier with Chinese re ning giant Sinopec to develop and fund the scheme lapsed. A FEED study on the Lobito plant was completed by KBR in 2010 while in mid-2015, Engineers India was awarded a contract for FEED validation and review of basic engineering and design.
A 1.5 square-km site has been allocated just north of Lobito. As previously conceived, the re nery would be built in two phases – the rst comprising low-conversion units aimed at satis- fying local demand, and the second upgrading the plant’s complexity to produce higher-quality fuels suitable for export.
In May 2011, the oil ministry said Sonaref would process around 120,000 bpd during its rst stage of operation. Recent statements have made no mention of staged development.
Completion is ambitiously being scheduled for 2022, with the facility seen processing Ango- lan heavy crude. Amid Lourenco’s efforts to reinvigorate the sector, an announcement in the short-term would not come as a surprise.
Experience from this project and other large downstream facilities in the region suggests that smaller steps would be wise.™
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w w w . N E W S B A S E . c o m Week 23 11•June•2019