Adedapo Adesanya
By Adedapo Adesanya
Africa’s second-largest oil producer, Angola, has inaugurated an extension unit on the Luanda refinery, which aims to increase the production of crude oil products fourfold, especially petrol.
This follows an agreement between President Joao Lourenco with the Italian oil company ENI was also signed to improve the production and marketing processes.
Speaking on this, Mr Lourenco said – “The main highlight is increasing the production capacity of refined petroleum products, such as diesel and gasoline.
“The situation in the country, which has significant crude oil production but until recently had little capacity to transform it, was somewhat incomprehensible.”
The new plant will bump up Angola’s fuel production to 1.58 million litres a day, contributing to a 15 per cent reduction in annual imports, according to state oil company Sonangol.
Angola is sub-Saharan Africa’s second-largest oil exporter after Nigeria but, according to government figures, it produces only about 20 per cent of the refined products it needs.
Built with support from Italian energy giant Eni, the new Luanda facility is one of several multimillion-dollar projects initiated by Mr Lourenco, who is seeking re-election in August.
It may also be on track to displace Nigeria as Africa’s top producer due to production declines in legacy oilfields and delayed exploration attributed to post-COVID-19 and energy transition capital expenditure trends.
Nigeria witnessed production cuts by 195,000 barrels per day to 1.02 million barrels per day from April to May 2022.
This reduction represents the biggest output decline out of all OPEC member states. As exploration ramps up across the continent, however, and new fields come online, the competition for the top spot is expected to become even more fierce.
