Page 11 - AfrOil Week 06 2022

AfrOil INVESTMENT AfrOil

She also asked that pending activities be expe- of crude from Hoima in western Uganda to the
dited “so that the refinery FID can also be port of Tanga on Tanzania’s Indian Ocean coast.
undertaken.” Then in November 2021, CNOOC took the
In August, the Africa Finance Corp. (AFC) step of making a final investment decision (FID)
advanced $20mn for the facility’s construction. on Kingfisher, which will eventually yield more
The African Development Bank (AfDB), Pros- than 40,000 bpd of oil.
per Africa and Trace and Development Agency Last week, TotalEnergies joined its partners
are also expected to provide financing for the in reaching the FID stage on Tilenga, a consid-
refinery. erably larger field that is slated to produce about
In the first quarter of 2021, the Ugandan 204,000 bpd of crude from about 400 wells
government signed a package of agreements drilled from more than 30 pads.
with TotalEnergies (France), China National It will provide most of the throughput for the
Offshore Oil Corp. (CNOOC) and the govern- EACOP link, and as such, the decision to pro-
ment of Tanzania on the construction of the East ceed with work at Tilenga has freed the French
Africa Crude Oil Pipeline (EACOP). Those doc- major and its partners in the EACOP consor-
uments outlined plans for the construction of a tium – CNOOC, UNOC and Tanzania Petro-
1,443-km heated pipeline, the longest of its kind leum Development Corp. (TPDC) – to make an
in the world, capable of pumping 216,000 bpd FID of their own. ™

POLICY
Nigerian distributors blame contaminated

imports for spreading gasoline shortages

NIGERIA NIGERIAN petroleum product distributors and Petroleum Products Retail Outlets Owners
other downstream stakeholders are attributing Association of Nigeria (PETROAN), explained
recent gasoline shortages to government efforts to Punch, these developments are likely to mean
to keep contaminated fuel off the market, local that supply shortages will persist at least until
newspapers reported on February 8. this weekend. “We are trying to see how the
The West African state has been experiencing situation can be remedied so that the country
supply disruptions following the federal govern- [doesn’t] run into any kind of crisis, but we see
ment’s recent decision to retain long-standing it dragging and hope that before the close of this
subsidies for domestic gasoline prices, especially week we will find a solution to it,” he said.
in and around the cities of Lagos and Abuja. For its part, NNPC has reportedly asked
Many Nigerian consumers have reacted to the trading companies for emergency supplies. The
shortfalls – and to the queues and shutdowns state-owned company is looking to procure
noted at many filling stations – by posting mes- around 500,000 tonnes of gasoline, sources with
sages of complaint on social media. direct knowledge of the matter told Reuters on
Nigerian fuel distributors and other play- February 8. They did not elaborate.
ers in the downstream sector have responded Meanwhile, the situation may be further
by stressing the need for patience, noting that complicated by truckers’ complaints about the
problems had arisen following the import of low rate of compensation the government offers
about 100mn litres of contaminated gasoline for hauling gasoline. Yusuf Othman, the national
by state-owned Nigerian National Petroleum president of the Nigerian Association of Road
Corp. (NNPC). Pipelines Product Marketing Transport Owners (NARTO), told reporters in
Co. (PPMC), a subsidiary of NNPC, has recalled Abuja on February 7 that a number of his group’s
the gasoline, which contains unacceptably high members had taken their tankers off the road.
levels of methanol, and is now trying to work out “Our people have parked their trucks, and more
a way to return it to the original supplier. people are going to park [theirs],” he said. ™
Meanwhile, some of the contaminated fuel
has made its way onto the local market. The
Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Petro-
leum Regulatory Authority (NMDPRA) is
working to isolate these volumes and remove
them from distribution, but its efforts have had
an impact on fuel distributors’ efforts to keep
filling stations supplied.
As Billy Gillis-Harry, the president of the Some stations have run out of gasoline (Photo: IPMAN)

Week 06 09•February•2022 www. NEWSBASE .com P11