Page 14 - AfrOil Week 04 2022

AfrOil PROJECTS & COMPANIES AfrOil

Plant official comments on start

date for new Dangote refinery

NIGERIA A representative of the Dangote refinery has said production can start, maybe, by the end of the
that the exact start date of the new oil-process- year or [the] beginning of 2023,” he was quoted
ing plant will be dependent on the outcome of a as saying by Platts.
testing programme that is due to wrap up late in The pre-commissioning of the plant’s pro-
the third quarter of 2022. duction units and export facilities began last
“Barring any hitches during this period of month, following the start-up of the fertiliser
the test run of the units, the refinery will start plant built together with the refinery. The plant
refining crude into [petroleum] products by the has been under construction since 2013 and was
fourth quarter of this year,” the official, who was originally due to come online several years ago.
not named, told S&P Global Platts on January When finished, the Dangote refinery will be
24. capable of turning out enough petroleum prod-
The official was speaking not long after Aliko ucts to cover all of Nigeria’s domestic demand.
Dangote, the president of Dangote Industries, Despite its position as Africa’s largest crude oil
said he expected his holding’s new refinery to producer, the country is currently a net importer
begin operating before the end of September of fuel.
2022 at an initial capacity of 540,000 barrels per Nigeria’s government took a 20% equity stake
day (bpd). in the plant through the national oil company
Speaking at a press briefing in Lagos on Jan- (NOC) in August 2021. Under this deal, Nige-
uary 22, Dangote told reporters that nearly all of rian National Petroleum Corp. (NNPC) is slated
the work on the oil-processing plant has already to provide the Dangote refinery with 300,000
been finished. “Mechanical work on the refin- bpd of crude oil, equivalent to more than 46% of
ery is complete, and hopefully before the end of the feedstock it needs to operate at its full capac-
third quarter we should be in the market ... Full ity of 650,000 bpd. ™

Major oil discovery offshore Namibia

could spark renewed investment

NAMIBIA SHELL (UK) has reportedly made a massive oil and ExxonMobil (US).
discovery off the coast of Namibia. The discov- Sources told Reuters that one of the layers of
ery could spark a flood of new investments in hydrocarbons found in the Graff-1 well, which
Namibia, if it is commercially viable. was spudded last month, contained what once
The find could be valued at NAD334bn of Reuters’ sources described as large amounts
($22bn), but it is only worth developing if the of hydrocarbons.
quality is good and the companies involved This layer, the source said, was at least 60
agree to proceed. Reuters reported that Namibia metres deep, holding an estimated 250 to 300mn
would make an announcement next week on the barrels of oil equivalent (boe). With oil prices
results. current averaging $88 per barrel, this adds up
The news agency cited three industry to a reservoir worth over $29bn, equivalent to
sources as saying that Shell had discovered NAD334bn at current prices.
two reservoirs in the Graff-1 well. The discov- Andreas Simon, a spokesperson for the
ery was reportedly made at Petroleum Explo- Namibian Energy Ministry, noted that work on
ration Licence 39 (PEL 39), which is held by the Graff-1 well had not yet been completed.
Shell (45%) and Qatar Petroleum (45%), with “It is our objective to safely execute the
National Petroleum Corp. of Namibia (Namcor) operations and collect quality data to enable a
owning the remaining 10%. thorough assessment of the prospect’s potential.
PEL 39 lies in the Orange basin, near BW As soon as all the data have been analysed, the
Offshore’s Kudu gas project and in the same ministry will announce the full results,” he said
region as sites licensed to TotalEnergies (France) in a statement. ™

P14 www. NEWSBASE .com Week 04 26•January•2022