Another African Country Builds New Refinery, Ready to Compete with Dangote
- Angola is set to complete its Cabinda oil refinery and commence production in April 2025
- The new facility will reportedly be commissioned between January and February next year
- The refinery will commence petroleum production with 30,000 barrels of crude supplies from Angola’s national oil firm, Sonangol.
Legit.ng’s Pascal Oparada has reported on tech, energy, stocks, investment and the economy for over a decade.
Angola’s Cabinda oil refinery will begin production in April 2025 after completing its first phase ahead of schedule.
The CEO of GemCorp Holdings Limited, the refinery’s majority shareholder, disclosed recently.
Source: Getty Images
The new refinery fixes date for production
According to GenCorp boss Atanas Bosandjiev, the new facility will be commissioned between January and February 2025, and its first fuel supplies will hit the local market between March and April.
GemCorp reportedly owns about 90% of the refinery.
Reuters reports that the new facility will be Angola’s second oil refinery and help make the continent’s second-largest oil producer less dependent on fuel imports as Angola moves to end fuel subsidies.
The GemCorp CEO said the refinery’s first phase funding hit about $500 million to $550 million. This is higher than the initial $473 million projection, as costs skyrocketed due to COVID-19 and inflation.
Reports say the previous target for the first phase completion was July next year.
State oil company to supply 300,000 barrels
The refinery will refine Angolan Cabinda crude, provided by the national oil company Sonangol, at 30,000 barrels daily and will supply 5-10% of Angola’s needs. The state oil firm owns about a 10% stake in the project.
A second phase will reportedly ramp up crude processing capacity to 60,000 barrels daily, bringing a diesel and aviation fuel-producing hydrocracking unit online one and a half years after operations commence.
The facility will initially export fuel and naphtha, which cannot be locally processed while supplying the market with diesel and aviation fuel.
Bostandjiev said that funding for the second phase has not been finalised, stating that a final decision is expected in April or May next year once the refinery commences operation.
Dangote and the new refinery to slash petrol imports
The facility could export some of its fuel to the Democratic Republic of the Congo later.
The London-based GemCorp was the only refinery’s Western investor.
When added to Nigeria's recently finished Dangote refinery, the new plant will reduce Africa’s dependence on petrol imports by half.
The Dangote Refinery, already producing and exporting PMS, diesel, and aviation fuel, faces patronage challenges from local marketers and the Nigerian Nigerian Petroleum Company Limited (NNPC).
The NNPC owns about 7.2% of the 650,000 bpd-capacity refinery and was listed as its sole off-taker before the deal was terminated in October.
Dangote to import crude oil from another African country
Legit.ng earlier reported that the $20 billion refinery has been touted as a transformative force for Nigeria and the energy sector in Sub-Saharan Africa.
Reuters reports that the refinery began production in January this year and has faced challenges sourcing crude supplies within Nigeria, Africa’s largest oil producer.
Nigeria grapples with oil theft, pipeline vandalism, and low investment. Due to the challenges, Dangote has relied chiefly on crude from other countries, such as Brazil and the United States.
Proofread by Kola Muhammed, journalist and copyeditor at Legit.ng
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