Page 11 - DMEA Week 34 2022

DMEA REFINING & FUELS DMEA

The gasoline plant, built with help from Eni, was launched in June of this year (Photo: Eni)

Italy’s Eni, which is participating in the develop- carbon dioxide emissions intensity. It will do so
ment of a number of Angola’s offshore oilfields, partly by increasing LPG output and partly by
provided technical support related to engineer- using by-products of the refining process to fuel
ing and construction supervision for the project. a combined-cycle thermal power plant (TPP) to
Representatives of Sonangol have pointed generate electricity for the refinery.
out that the gasoline unit will help improve The Luanda refinery has a throughput capac-
the refinery’s efficiency while also reducing its ity of 65,000 barrels per day (bpd). ™

Iraqi oil minister: Karbala refinery

will help slash fuel imports in 2023

MIDDLE EAST IRAQ’S Oil Minister Ihsan Ismaael has said he
expects the Karbala refinery to cut the country’s
fuel imports by more than half when it becomes
fully operational next year.
The $6bn plant, which has been under con-
struction since 2014, is due to begin test runs in
October of this year and will then reach its full
operating capacity of 140,000 barrels per day
(bpd) around the end of the first half of 2023,
Ismaael noted. By that time, the refinery will
be in a position to “reduce [Iraq’s fuel] import
needs by 60%,” MEES quoted him as saying.
Midlands Oil Refining Co. (MORC), the
Iraqi Oil Ministry subsidiary that is slated even-
tually to own the plant, appears to concur with
the minister’s estimation of the timeline. It has
said it expects the refinery to reach full operating
capacity in the first or second quarter of 2023. The Karbala oil refinery has been under construction since 2014 (Photo: ALE)
Iraq’s government awarded a contract for
the building of the Karbala refinery to a South of the crash in crude oil prices and the armed
Korean consortium led by Hyundai Engineering conflict with Islamic State (Daesh) that occurred
in 2014. Since then, however, work on the pro- in 2014, he explained to MEES.
ject has fallen far behind schedule. More recently, however, Iraqi authorities
In 2019, Iraq’s then-Oil Minister Thamir have been seeking push the project forward. On
al-Ghadhban attributed the delays to the gov- August 18, the Ministry of Oil published a video
ernment’s failure to uphold all of its financial update claiming that the plant had reached the
obligations. Baghdad found itself unable to pay milestone of 95.5% complete as of the end of
its contractors and suppliers on time as a result July.

Week 34 25•August•2022 www. NEWSBASE .com P11