Page 16 - AfrOil Week 41

AfrOil PROJECTS & COMPANIES AfrOil

“We are already making steady progress towards finance construction, using a mix of equity and
our refinery project. We have already identified credit funding.
and secured land for the refinery in Paloich. We South Sudan gained independence from
have engaged Chemex of the US as the project Sudan in 2011, taking the bulk of the former
manager,” he said. “Separately we are close to combined country’s oil wealth with it. Since then
tying up project preparatory work financing it has been working to expand its refining capac-
from Afrieximbank, and this will aid in the engi- ity to over 100,000 bpd, although NewsBase sees
neering and design work for the facility.” this target as overly ambitious.
Operations will start in two to three years and The country’s current five-year strategy calls
the refinery will handle 40,000 barrels per day for the construction of five refineries close to its
(bpd) of crude from locally produced oil in the oilfields. It also involves the rehabilitation of the
oil-rich Upper Nile region. This capacity could existing 5,000 bpd Bentiu oil refinery, which was
be raised to 200,000 bpd in the future, supplying reported as near completion in August.
customers across the East Africa region. Trinity won a contract to build an oil refin-
“So we have the source, we will refine it right ery near Paloich in 2018. The company, which
near the sources, and from there we will find the controls 40% of South Sudan’s fuel supply, also
market,” Mdeza continued. “One market that is plans to build a 50mn litre storage site for refined
obvious is South Sudan, next door is Ethiopia, products beside the Juba-Bahr-el-Ghazal high-
Sudan and the surrounding countries are the way, Mdeza said. In addition, it wants to distrib-
potential market.” ute fuels in Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania and the
Trinity will look to partners with banks to Democratic Republic of Congo (Kinshasa). ™

ExxonMobil, Sonangol to explore 3 blocks

ANGOLA ANGOLA’S National Agency of Petroleum, Gas After the ceremony, Jerónimo and Kostelnik
and Biofuels (ANPG) has signed new explora- confirmed that ExxonMobil and Sonangol had
tion contracts with ExxonMobil for three new already invested about $50mn in the first phase
deepwater licence areas in the Namibe Basin. of exploration work at the blocks. In this phase,
In a statement, the agency reported that it they noted, the parties had acquired and evalu-
had awarded risk service agreements for Blocks ated seismic data from the three licence areas.
30, 44 and 45 with US-based ExxonMobil and Under the new contracts, Jerónimo added,
the national oil company (NOC) Sonangol. the partners will process and interpret the seis-
These contracts split equity in these sites 60% to mic data to select drilling sites. They then hope
the US super-major and 40% to the NOC, it said. to proceed to exploration drilling, he said.
These three licence areas are located 50-100 km ExxonMobil will carry the costs of explo-
from the coast in waters ranging from 1,500 to ration during this stage of work, the ANPG
3,000 metres deep, it added. chairman added. If a commercial discovery is
ANPG said that the agreements would help made, Sonangol will pay its share of exploration
determine the potential of the Namibe Basin. expenses in kind with crude oil, he noted. ™
They will accomplish this by granting Exxon-
Mobil and Sonangol access to more than 17,800
square km of the basin, which has thus far
remained mostly unexplored, it explained.
Paulino Jerónimo, the chairman of ANPG’s
board of directors, said at a ceremony marking
the signing of the agreements that his agency
was pleased to be working with an experienced
company such as ExxonMobil on the new pro-
jects. “The success of the work carried out in
Angola by international operators, many of
[which] already have a consolidated presence in
the country, is an extremely important factor for
the development and credibility of the Angolan
oil sector,” he commented.
Andre Kostelnik, ExxonMobil’s general
manager in Angola, was quoted as saying in the
ANPG statement that his company would “work
with the Angolan government and ANPG to
identify the border areas with the best resource
potential, applying our proven experience and
our cutting-edge technology.” Blocks 30, 44 and 45 are in the Namibe basin (Image: PetroAngola.com)

P16 www. NEWSBASE .com Week 41 14•October•2020