Page 7 - DMEA Week 15 2022

DMEA SUPPLY & PROCESSING DMEA

Kenya to cut product export

quotas amid domestic shortage

AFRICA KENYA’S energy regulator has said it will reduce Supply Coordination Committee Chairman Eric
import allocation of firms who increased exports Fanchini.
of oil products to neighbouring countries and EPRA’s Director-General Daniel Kiptoo
left local markets with insufficient fuel supply. called for the reduction of capacity share for all
The Energy and Petroleum Regulatory OMCs that increased their transit volumes over
Authority (EPRA) warned on Tuesday (April and above their normal quota during the supply
12) in a letter sent to the heads of all oil market- crisis period and “a corresponding increase of
ing companies (OMCs) operating in the coun- capacity to all OMCs whose local volume sales
try that it will take punitive action against errant increased above their normal quota during the
firms. same period.”
“EPRA has analysed the daily petroleum Kenya imports refined oil products through
loadings over the past 4 weeks and noted that the centralized open tender system (OTS) over-
a number of OMCs have in the period under seen by the Ministry of Petroleum. The alloca-
review given priority to export loadings while tion of fuel each OMC receives when a tender
the local market was left to suffer intermittent is floated depends on Kenyan market share and
supply,” said the regulator. transit volumes.
The letter also sent to Petroleum and Mining Mombasa port handles oil production des-
Principal Secretary Andrew Kamau, was copied tined for use in the local market and exports to
to Petroleum and Mining Acting Cabinet Sec- Uganda, northern Tanzania, Burundi, eastern
retary Monica Juma, Kenya Pipeline Company Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Rwanda
(KPC) Managing Director Irungu Macharia and and South Sudan.™

REFINING

Iran gives further update

on Abadan upgrade

MIDDLE EAST IRAN this week provided another update on the said earlier this month would come in at a cost
progress of its billion-dollar project to upgrade of around $1.26bn. Stage one also includes vac-
the country’s oldest refinery at Abadan. uum distillation units, utility units and ancillary
A statement by Ahmad Farzaneh, National facilities.
Iranian Oil Refining and Distribution Co. Last week, he said the full second phase
(NIORDC) manager for the Abadan Refinery would stabilise Abadan’s throughput capacity
Development and Stabilisation Project – the at 360,000 barrels per day (bpd), through the
facility’s second phase of development – pro- addition of new units to replace ageing parts of
vided to the Ministry of Petroleum said that the the facility, noting that the new units would all
scheme is 92% complete and will be finalised come on stream by the end of the current Iranian
during the summer. calendar year, which concludes in March 2023.
“The venture includes the installation of new Farzaneh said that the second part of phase
units, including hydrogen processing, hydroc- 2 would encompass hydrogen treatment and
racking, liquefied petroleum gas [LPG], crude gasoline production units, including continu-
distillation and other utilities to replace old units ous catalytic reforming, naphtha hydrotreater,
built 70 years ago,” he said. isomerisation, gasoline hydrotreater, kerosene
Farzaneh added that the HPUs will both hydrotreater and utility units “and related ancil-
improve the facility’s environmental perfor- lary facilities will be built with an investment of
mance and increase the supply of Euro-V com- about $1.7bn.”
pliant fuels. The Abadan complex, which comprises two
Phase 2 is split into two stages, and while refining facilities with capacities of 150,000 bpd
Farzaneh did not clarify, he appears to have and 210,000 bpd respectively, is the Middle East’s
been talking about the first of these, which he oldest refinery.™

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