Chinese companies start building refinery in Angola

Angola should be self-sufficient in gasoline and diesel from 2017, following the commissioning of the new Soyo refinery, said the chairman of state oil company Sonangol Tuesday at the ceremony to lay the first stone.
Construction of the Soyo refinery was awarded to two Chinese companies. The work should be completed in 26 months and will occupy an area of ​​220 hectares in a significant oil production area (northern Zaire province).
Francisco de Lemos, who was accompanied by Yu Hao Ming, of the Hong Kong-based China International Fund, said completion of the project would make it possible to “completely reduce imports of major products extracted from oil, starting with diesel, whose deficit is very high, as well as gasoline.”
Angola, which is the second largest oil producer in sub-Saharan Africa, had to import about 40 percent of its oil derivatives such as gasoline and diesel in the first quarter of the year due to the country’s reduced oil refining capacity.
The current national refinery on the outskirts of Luanda was built in 1955 and operates at about 70 percent capacity, and, according to an IMF report which analyzed the fuel sector in Angola, “is very inefficient” and production costs “are generally higher than imported fuels.”  MDT/Macauhub