Page 14 - AfrOil Week 02 2021

AfrOil PERFORMANCE AfrOil

South Africa is home to four conventional oil refineries (Image: SAPIA)

Local press agencies have reported that Engen When contacted by Bloomberg, neither
intends to shutter its Durban plant in 2023 and Astron nor Engen commented on the future of
convert it into a fuel terminal. The closure will their refineries.
not only constrain domestic supplies but also If, as anticipated, South Africa becomes more
raise questions about whether the Petronas dependent on fuel imports, other countries will
affiliate should spend the money to bring the be affected by this shift.
refinery back online next year. Botswana, for example, is heavily reliant on
If the Durban refinery is indeed sched- purchases of South African petroleum products
uled to close in 2023, “it would not make eco- and is still working to hammer out supply deals
nomic sense to invest into bringing it back up,” with nearby countries such as Namibia and
remarked Elitsa Georgieva, an analyst at Citac. Mozambique. ™

POLICY
Egypt offers $950mn in

loans to convert cars to gas

EGYPT EGYPT’S central bank has launched an to individuals seeking to convert their gaso-
EGP15bn ($950mn) initiative to support motor- line-fuelled cars to use natural gas as well. The
ists that want to convert their vehicles to run on financing is available for between seven and 10
natural gas. years.
The country now has a surplus of natural gas Egypt wants eventually to see as many as
supply, thanks to the launch of the Eni-oper- 1.3mn gas-fuelled cars on the road, primarily
ated Zohr field in 2017 and other gas projects in by converting existing vehicles that are over
recent years. Its government is therefore work- 20 years old. The target is to convert or replace
ing to give gas a greater role in the Egyptian 250,000 cars in the next three years. President
economy. It wants to see more gas-fuelled cars Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi also said last year that all
on the road, in order to reduce pollution levels new cars would be required to operate on natu-
in Egypt’s largest cities, reduce transport costs ral gas before they were given a licence.
and bring down the country’s fuel import bill. The central bank unveiled the support pack-
The central bank’s initiative will see loans age on January 3, on the eve of Egypt’s first Go
with a 3% interest rate provided through banks Green Exhibition.

P14 www. NEWSBASE .com Week 02 13•January•2021