Page 16 - DMEA Week 13 2021

DMEA REFINING DMEA

With Zinder refinery closed,

Niger suspends exports

AFRICA NIGER this week halted oil exports, dedicating in refining, the chances prospects of building a
flows to meet domestic demand as the country’s state-sponsored $2bn, 100,000-150,000 bpd unit
sole refinery at Zinder awaits part for repair. were always slim and requirement debateable.
“A failure occurred at the catalytic cracking Indeed, little has been heard of it since.
unit” on March 26, according to Zhao Guang- At the time, DMEA quoted Jubril Kareem,
ming, director general of the refinery’s operator energy research analyst at Lagos-based Ecobank
Soraz. This brought refining operations to a halt, as saying that Chinese investors offered Niger “a
he wrote in a letter to the country’s Minister of better alternative”.
Petroleum.
Guangming added: “To effectively guarantee Benin outlet
the supply of the domestic market with refined This is now playing out in the form of a CNPC-
products during the stoppage of refining, we backed, $7bn pipeline to carry crude from the
propose to suspend export loadings.” Agadem basin to Benin’s Port Seme.
A refinery employee told Reuters that the Engineering work for the 1,950-km pipeline
spare part is expected to arrive on April 3 or 4. has already been carried out by CNPC-linked
The 20,000-barrel per day (bpd) facility is a firms, with the Chinese firm and partner West
60:40 joint venture between the Nigerien gov- African Oil Pipeline Benin Co. (Wapco Benin)
ernment and China National Petroleum Corp. kicking off the initial construction phase in late
(CNPC). 2019. The conduit will run 1,275km through
Chinese companies also own 65% of Niger’s Niger and 675km through Beninese territory.
only producing field, Agadem – with Taiwan’s It will have a throughput capacity of around
CPC holding 20% and the state 15%. Agadem’s 90,000 bpd with commercial operations
full 20,000-bpd output is piped to Zinder for expected in early 2022.
processing. CNPC’s China Petroleum Technology &
However, with Niamey’s lofty ambitions of Development Co. subsidiary is handling pro-
increasing production – to 120,000 bpd by 2024 curement for the project and 13,000 pipeline
– export options have been mulled. In 2018, a segments were shipped from the port of Tianjin
memorandum of understanding (MoU) was to Benin in January 2020 with these arriving in
signed with Nigeria for the collaborative devel- Cotonou a month later. Meanwhile, Australian
opment of a refinery and an oil pipeline between engineering firm Worley has carried out design
the two countries, with oil to be sourced from work for a 15-km, 28-inch (711mm) offshore
Niger’s Tenere block. pipeline that will link to a single-point mooring
Considering Nigeria’s disastrous track record (SPM) for tanker loading.™

P16 www. NEWSBASE .com Week 13 01•April•2021