Page 11 - DMEA Week 45 2021

DMEA REFINING DMEA

reject Carlyle’s assertion that its oil had in effect wall for the Mohammedia plant, a deal appears
been stolen by SAMIR had been “unanimously to remain in place between state-run Russian
reversed”. development bank VEB and MYA Energy, a
The plaintiffs (Carlyle) sought to “recover subsidiary of the local Marita Group, for the
excess marine cargo insurance policy for losses establishment of a 100,000 bpd unit.
they sustained when a Moroccan oil refinery However, upon its announcement, VEB dep-
became insolvent. Under the arrangement uty chairman Daniil Algulyan said: “The project
between plaintiff Carlyle Commodities Man- will be financed on an inter-bank lending basis.
agement LLC, then known as Vermillion Asset VEB is willing to provide funding for Morocco’s
Management LLC, and the refinery, Carlyle partner to buy equipment and services from
would pay for crude oil that the refinery had con- Russian counterparties. The direct lender of the
tracted to purchase from third-party suppliers, project’s company will be a bank of the Kingdom
and the refinery would subsequently repurchase of Morocco.”
the oil from Carlyle.” Aside from a planned slate that is to include
The fund filed a claim with its insurers Lloyd’s gasoline, Euro V diesel, jet fuel, Euro IV fuel and
of London to recover the value of the crude “after bitumen, few details about the planned refinery
the Moroccan government froze the refinery’s have been announced, though there have been
bank accounts, rendering the refinery unable to reports suggesting that the 100,000 bpd figure is
repurchase the commodities”. a start-up capacity, with a longer-term target of
In September 2020, London-based infra- reaching 200,000 bpd.
structure financer Elite Capital broke off talks Given the cost of building a refinery of this
to acquire SAMIR’s assets following two years of scale, and the availability of the Mohammedia
discussions, citing a “flaw” in the proposed deal. unit, a greenfield investment would appear to
make little sense. Indeed, no updates have been
Russian deal provided by either of the parties involved since
While the writing appears to (still) be on the last year.™

FUELS

NNPC offers reassurance on supplies, prices

AFRICA NIGERIAN National Petroleum Corp. (NNPC) to raise fuel prices. The country has enough gas-
has tried to assuage consumers’ concerns about oline to meet demand through the Christmas
potential gasoline shortages, saying in a state- and New Year’s Day holidays, he added.
ment that the country had adequate supplies. NNPC issued its statement amidst reports
In the statement, which was dated Novem- that filling stations in several parts of the coun-
ber 8, NNPC spokesman Garba Muhammad try were running out of gasoline. Last week, the
was quoted as saying that Nigeria had more Nigerian press began recording long queues at
than 1.7bn litres of gasoline in domestic storage several filling stations in Abuja, the capital city.
facilities. These volumes are sufficient to meet Then between November 3 and November 7,
immediate demand, and the country is sched- cars began lining up at new locations – not just
uled to receive additional import cargoes within in Abuja, but also in Kano State. Meanwhile,
the next few months, he reported. motorists began complaining that gasoline was
Under current circumstances, consumers do only available on the black market for prices
not have any reason to fear supply shortages and of NGN250 ($0.61) per litre or higher, signifi-
should not engage in panic buying, Muhammad cantly above the official recommended price of
declared. NGN148 ($0.36) per litre.
He further noted that the Nigerian Mid- In related news, the Independent Petroleum
stream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Marketers Association of Nigeria (IPMAN) said
Authority (NMDPRA), a state agency created on November 9 that it had set up a task force
recently in accordance with the Petroleum committee to investigate reports of gasoline
Industry Act (PIA), has been trying to make this hoarding and to help ensure that domestic fuel
point to the public. “In view of these assurances, supplies remained adequate. Bashir Dan-Mal-
therefore, the NNPC is advising motorists and lam, chairman of IPMAN’s Kano zone unit,
other consumers of petrol to maintain their reg- noted in a statement that the committee would
ular pattern of the purchase of petrol without work to determine whether any filling station
getting into a panic situation that may send the owners were keeping gasoline supplies from
wrong signals around the country,” he said. being sold. He also said that 210 tanker trucks
Additionally, he stressed that he was not had been loaded with fuel on November 8 for
aware of any plans by the Nigerian government distribution around the country.™

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