Page 13 - DMEA Week 20 2022

DMEA REFINING DMEA

Soyo refinery: optimism

builds as first stone is laid

AFRICA FOLLOWING last week’s laying of the first asphalt, and is protected from adverse geopolit-
foundation stone at the refinery at Soyo in the ical events”. Between September and December
country’s northern Zaire province, Angolan 2020, due diligence was carried out by PwC on
President João Lourenço met with the project’s eight bidders, with five consortia going through
developer in Luanda. to the final round.
Just over a week ago, Angolan NOC Sonan-
gol kicked off the development of the refin- Lobito talks
ery, which will be carried out by the US-based Meanwhile, Sonangol held meetings to launch
Quanten Consortium, comprising three US the engineering, procurement and construction
firms (Quanten, TGT and Aurum & Sharp) (EPC) phase of its flagship Lobito refinery, which
and one local technical services firm, ATIS will have a capacity of 200,000 bpd.
Nebest-Angola. The consortium was awarded a Sonangol said in April that it had decided to
$3.5bn build, own and operate (BOO) contract move forward with the project despite not yet
by Angola’s Ministry of Mineral Resources and having chosen a partner. Company president
Petroleum (MIREMPET) last year and holds a Sebastião Gaspar Martins said: “At the moment,
90% stake in the refinery, with Sonangol owning we are deciding with which entities we are going
the remainder. to form the consortium and shareholder, but we
This week, Segun Thomas, chairman of the intend to move forward with the project, albeit
Quanten Consortium, met with Lourenço at the with initial funds from Sonangol.”
presidential palace and declared that the project Meanwhile, company director Joaquim
would provide 3,000 jobs for locals in the con- Fernandes was quoted this week by the official
struction phase. The refinery is set to be built on Angop as saying: “One of the foals of this meet-
a seven-square km plot in the town of Matanga ing is to relaunch the Lobito refinery project,
and the project timeline anticipates completion which is one of the four axes of the refining sec-
in late 2025. tor, and has, in this new phase, [Brazil’s Odebre-
According to Quanten’s website and various cht Engenharia e Construção (OEC)] and [local
previous announcements about the project, it construction firm] DAR as partners in construc-
will have a refining capacity of 100,000 barrels tion and inspection”.
per day, producing gasoline, low-sulphur diesel OEC is building a crude distillation unit
and jet fuel. However, official local media this (CDU) at the Cabinda refinery, which is also
week provided a figure of 250,000 bpd – Down- under development.
stream MEA (DMEA) has been unable to verify Start-up guidance has now been set at Sep-
whether or not the higher number is accurate. tember 2026-February 2027 for Lobito, while a
Quanten envisages the development of front-end engineering and design (FEED) study
a “deep conversion refinery with maximum covering a single-train facility with a hydroc-
uptime, which produces consumer-ready end racker is anticipated to be completed by the end
products such as gasoline, diesel, jet fuel and of this year.™

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