Page 15 - DMEA Week 35

DMEA REFINING DMEA

Nigeria’s BUA awards tech contract to

Axens for 200kbpd refining complex

NIGERIA LAGOS-BASED conglomerate BUA Group has would help Nigeria overcome its dependence on
awarded a contract to France’s Axens Group for imported fuels and petrochemicals.
The plant is due on a range of technologies for a 200,000 barrel per Nigeria is Africa’s biggest oil producer but
stream in 2024,helping day (bpd) refining and petrochemicals complex cannot meet its own fuel demand because of
Nigeria overcome its it plans to build in Akwa Ibom State. limited refining capacity. Its large state-owned
reliance on fuel imports. Axens will license out its various proprietary refineries have fallen into disrepair and operate
processing technologies while also providing at only a fraction of their nameplate capability.
basic engineering, proprietary equipment, cat- Nigeria’s national oil company (NOC)
alysts and adsorbents, as well as training and NNPC opted to close its three refineries in
technical services. It did not say how much the Warri, Port Harcourt and Kaduna earlier this
contract was worth, although the technologies it year because operating them is unprofitable. It
is providing include various solutions for residue spent NGN10.2bn ($27mn) on rehabilitating the
fluid catalytic cracking (RFCC) and its proprie- plants in June, according to a report published
tary Prime-G+ process for catalytically cracked last week. It wants to re-open them after they
gasoline selective desulphurisation. have undergone extensive upgrades.
“Once completed, this RFCC-based complex Nigeria has a number of other new refining
will produce high-quality gasoline, diesel [and] projects in the works. The biggest of these is the
jet fuel meeting [Euro-5] specifications for the 650,000 bpd grassroots Dangote refinery in the
Nigerian market and the larger region,” BUA country’s south-west, scheduled for commis-
CEO Abdul Samad Rabiu said in a statement. “In sioning next year. A number of companies are
addition, [the complex] will produce propylene, also developing small-sized modular refineries.
an essential component for the petrochemical Nigeria’s Department of Petroleum Resources
industry used in polypropylene-based plastics estimated this week that the country would
and packaging.” become a net exporter of fuels by 2020, thanks
He said the complex, due on stream in 2024, to new capacity coming on stream. ™

Azerbaijan’s SOCAR offered

Israeli oil refinery

ISRAEL AZERBAIJAN’S national oil company SOCAR demand in Israel to slump.
has been invited to acquire the Ashdod oil refin- Paz’s adjusted net income for the three
The Ashdod refinery is ery in Israel but has rejected it, press reports in months ending June 30 was ILS8mn ($2.4mn),
Israel’s second largest both countries claim. versus ILS24mn a year earlier. Revenues dropped
with a 95,000 bpd Israel’s Calcalist newspaper reported last 61% to ILS1.36bn, as jet fuel sales plummeted
capacity. week that Azeri representatives had visited sev- 80% owing to a steep drop in flights in Israel.
eral Israeli companies, as SOCAR needs a local The company suffered an adjusted operating
partner to help buy the plant, currently owned loss in its refining business for the three months
by the country’s top fuel supplier Paz Oil. Those of ILS66mn, compared with ILS55mn a year
companies included Shafir Andasa and Aspen. before.
However, the company told Azeri media “The refining segment, which was affected
on August 31 that it had received a proposal to by the global coronavirus, record the largest
buy the plant, but it “doesn’t consider such an decrease mainly due to a decrease in the number
investment.” of barrels sold due to a decrease in demand for
The Ashdod refinery is Israel’s second-largest, fuels and a reduction in production volume,” Paz
with a processing capacity of 95,000 barrels per said in late August, reporting its results.
day (bpd). It is responsible for around 40% of the However, Paz said consumption of fuel for
country’s fuel consumption. transportation had recovered and reached 96%
Paz has been struggling since last year, ini- of its usual level in June. It has been taking steps
tially because of the temporary closure of the to cut costs and boost revenues, and is working
Ashdod refinery so that a cat cooler could be to buy Israel’s Super Yuda retail chain.
installed. Matters became worse when the coro- SOCAR has refining capacity in Azerbaijan and
navirus (COVID-19) pandemic hit, causing fuel owns additional plants in Turkey and Russia. ™

Week 35 03•September•2020 www. NEWSBASE .com P15