Page 10 - AfrOil Week 17 2020

AfrOil POLICY AfrOil
EQUATORIAL GUINEA
THE government of Equatorial Guinea and Marathon Oil (US) have chosen a contractor for a study of plans to construct a modular oil refinery.
The Equatoguinean Ministry of Mines and Hydrocarbons (MMH) said last week that it had joined with Marathon, its strategic part- ner, in naming Houston-based Vfuels to carry out the study. The contract provides for Vfuels to provide engineering and design services for a 5,000 barrel per day (bpd) refinery in Punta Europa on Bioko Island. The proposed plant would produce petroleum products for domes- tic consumption.
MMH and Marathon have not yet revealed the value of the contract. They have indicated, though, that they expect Vfuels to complete the study within 12 weeks.
The refinery will be built on the site of a methanol plant owned by Atlantic Methanol Production Co. Last December, MMH issued orders for the dismantling of the facility in preparation for its conversion into a modular oil-processing plant. The following month, it struck an agreement with Marathon on a study of the modular refining project and a sepa- rate study of methanol-based gasoline and its derivatives.
Marathon owns a 45% stake in Atlantic Methanol Production Co. The remaining equity in the plant is split between Noble Energy (US), with 45%, and Equatorial Guinea’s state-owned natural gas company Sociedad Nacional de Gas de GE (Sonagas), with 10%.
Gabriel Mbaga Obiang Lima, the head of MMH, noted last week that the refinery project fell within the framework of the Equatoguinean government’s Year of Investment 2020 initia- tive. The programme also includes plans to seek funding for methanol-related projects and the construction of storage facilities on the country’s continental territory, he said.
These projects will help Equatorial Guinea ensure adequate supplies of high-quality fuel to the domestic market, he added. “This is an important step when it comes to implementing this project with an important goal to prevent stock-outs and provide refined products of higher quality to economic operators and the general public,” he commented.
When finished, the refinery will be part of the Punta Europa oil and gas complex near Malabo, the capital of Equatorial Guinea. The complex also includes a gas liquefaction plant that turns out LNG, gas-processing facilities and a gas-fired thermal power plant (TPP). ™
 The parties are using Pumangol’s Fishing Port terminal, which has been in operation since 2017. The terminal is connected to a conven- tional buoy mooring (CBM) system, the largest facility of its kind in the world, to berth tankers that are loading or off-loading petroleum prod- ucts in Luanda.
Both Pumangol and Sonangol are major players on Angola’s domestic motor fuel market. The NOC owns more than 40% of the country’s filling stations, while the joint venture has about 7% of the total. (Pumangol is also engaged in the
distribution of heavier products such as asphalt and bitumen.)
Sonangol has said that it wants to expand its storage capacity in order to improve Angola’s energy security. It has been working to build a new terminal at Barra do Dande in Bengo Province since 2013, but the facility is not yet finished.
The terminal’s storage capacity was initially set at 641,500 cubic metres but will eventually reach 1.2mn cubic metres. The price tag for the project has been estimated at $1bn.™
Malabo taps Vfuels for refinery study
Marathon’s existing methanol plant will be made into a modular refinery (Photo: Atlantic Methanol Production Co.)
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w w w . N E W S B A S E . c o m Week 17 29•April•2020