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The Mombasa refinery has been serving as a storage facility since 2013 (Photo: KPRL)

Mombasa refinery could be

revived with Eni’s biofuel plan

KENYA PLANS are in motion to revive the dormant unable to finance further crude oil purchases.
Kenya Petroleum Refineries Ltd (KPRL) facil- Nairobi opted to convert the site into a stor-
ity at Changamwe, Mombasa, with Italy’s Eni in age facility and allowed Kenya Pipeline Co.
talks to convert the unit to process biofuels. (KPC) to lease the assets for a three-year term,
The refinery was transformed into a storage scheduled to expire in March 2020. KPC oper-
terminal in 2013 after ceasing refining opera- ates existing fuel tanks with capacity of 320mn
tions and most recently acted as a storage facility litres at the port of Mombasa.
for crude oil produced under the Early Oil Pilot KPRL’s facilities comprise 45 tanks with total
Scheme (EOPS) at the country’s South Lokichar capacity of 484mn litres, including 254mn litres
oilfields, which was halted in mid-2020. for refined products and 233mn litres (1.47mn
Eni CEO Claudio Descalzi recently met with barrels) for crude oil.
Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta to discuss Eni converted the Venice refinery to run on
various green initiatives with a broad aim of biofuels in 2014 and intends to produce bio-
increasing energy security in an “efficient and diesel by 2024, and also operates the country’s
sustainable” manner. Gela bio-refinery.
Talks focused on a multi-year initiative to Meanwhile, Petroleum and Mining Principal
collect and process waste and agricultural resi- Secretary Andrew Kamau said that Eni began
dues in biofuel plants to produce fuels including biofuel studies in December. “One of the things
biodiesel, bio-jet and bioethanol by using circu- we have been working on since December is bio-
lar economy methods. fuels. Eni has been undertaking a study in Kenya
In a statement following the meeting, Eni to see how we can produce biodiesel and power
said: “The parties discussed the development ethanol. The company is working with the min-
of circular economy initiatives, including the istries of petroleum, agriculture and the treasury
recovery, regeneration and re-use of agricul- to see how we can engage farmers to grow crops
tural and food waste produced in the country. that can produce fuel.”
The industrial transformation of waste would Kamau added that “the first step will be how
enhance its contribution to power generation in to get used cooking oil from households, hotels
partial replacement of fossil sources, making a and restaurants and then refine it towards using
decisive contribution to the country’s decarbon- it as biodiesel. The other thing we are looking
isation process,” at is the growing of the crops – these include
Central to this would be the conversion of rapeseed, castor seeds and sugar cane. This has
the KPRL plant, which was the region’s only the potential to create employment and further
refinery. develop agriculture.”
The closure of the 35,000 barrel per day (bpd) During the same visit, Eni announced that it
unit followed the withdrawal of foreign partner had been given the rights to drill more explora-
Essar Oil of India,which had deemed a promised tory wells offshore Mombasa, signing amend-
upgrade and expansion project uneconomic. ments to three production-sharing contracts
This followed heavily indebted KPRL being (PSCs). ™

P14 www. NEWSBASE .com Week 13 31•March•2021