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TechnipEnergies completes Senegal’s refinery expansion project

Picture: TechnipEnergies

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On June 29th, TechnipEnergies Country Director for Senegal, Franck Pliya, announced the holding of the last Steering Committee meeting of the ACATBS project at the SAR Refinery in Dakar.

The contractor had been involved in a significant upgrade and expansion of the refinery over the past months, which culminated in a facility shutdown in Q1 this year to synchronise several new units.

The ACATBS project (projet d’Augmentation de Capacité et d’Adaptation des unités pour le Traitement du Brut Sénégalais) notably targeted the expansion of the refinery’s capacity from 1.2m to 1.5m tonnes per year (tpy). It consisted of the installation of a pre-flash column to increase production capacity by 30%, and the extension of the reforming unit to enable the processing of domestic crude oil from the Sangomar offshore field, where first oil is expected in 2023.

“Through this project, we have achieved 1.2m hours without accident, remained on budget, and managed to ensure an 80% participation from Senegalese companies with a local workforce of over 500 mobilised on site during the peak of the project,” Franck Pliya wrote.    

SAR mostly imports crude oil from Nigeria (especially Erha and Bonny Light) before refining it for distribution in Senegal and the landlocked subregion, especially in Mali. Its facilities include distillation units, a catalytic reformer and a MEROX unit to treat kerosene. The facility was initially commissioned in 1963 and is owned at 46% by the state-owned national oil company PETROSEN.

Full details on the African refining sector can be found in Hawilti’s Quarterly Refineries Watch, available within your Hawilti+ research terminal (plus.hawilti.com).

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Côte d’Ivoire adds 180 MW to flagship gas-to-power plant in Abidjan

On Monday this week, Côte d’Ivoire added another 180 MW to its Azito gas-to-power complex in Yopougon, Abidjan. The facility has been under expansion since 2019 under the Azito 4 project, which includes the new 180 MW gas turbine inaugurated this week, and a 74 MW steam turbine. Azito 4 represents an investment of some €330m and is expected to produce about 2 000 GWh every year upon completion. It follows several phases of expansion since the project was initially conceived in the late 1990s under a 24-year concession agreement. The facility is equipped by GE turbines, including the new GT13E2 2012 MXL2 turbine commissioned this week, which is now the biggest one installed in the country. Azito successfully monetizes domestic gas produced offshore Côte d'Ivoire by Foxtrot and national oil company PETRO-CI. Its conversion to a combined-cycle facility in 2015 notably helped in reducing carbon emissions by almost 450,000 tCO2e/year. Details on Azito’s history, operational and sustainability performances are available in the “Projects” section within your Hawilti+ research terminal.

Nigeria: get to know the awardees of the latest Marginal Fields Bidding Round

Earlier this week, Nigeria held a grand ceremony in Abuja to unveil its Host Communities Development Regulations and Petroleum Prospecting Licences (PPLs) under its newly-adopted Petroleum Industry Act (PIA). The regulations are expected to provide a more durable and sustainable framework to engage local communities in the development of the country’s oil and gas sector. The PPLs regulations, on the other side, are a departure from the former regime as they mark the end of Farm-out Agreements for marginal fields. Moving forward, marginal fields will be awarded following open, competitive tenders resulting in the award of a PPL. The PPLs currently have a term of three years which can be extended by an additional three years, making the licenses valid for six years in total. The ceremony held this week is the result of the 2020 Marginal Fields Bidding Round, where 540 applicants pre-qualified, out of which 161 were declared preferred bidders. According to Minister of Petroleum Resources Chief Timipre Sylva, the round was able to generate NGN 200bn in revenues to the Nigerian government. Successful awardees who were able to pay for their signature bonuses were given their PPLs this week. They now have to form special purpose vehicles (SPVs) with their partners to develop their fields, in what was called an “arranged marriage” by many new licence owners. “Nigeria is committed to implementing full beneficial ownership disclosure of the awardees through the development of a web-portal,” said Engr. Gbenga Komolafe, Chief Executive of the new Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission (NUPRC). The list of awardees announced this week, including individual entities, their respective fields and PPL numbers, is available within your Hawilti+ research terminal at plus.hawilti.com.