Angola’s new Cabinda oil refinery, nearing the completion of its first phase, is scheduled to start fuel production by April 2025.
Project leader Atanas Bostandjiev, founder and CEO of Gemcorp, the primary stakeholder, announced that commissioning will take place in January-February, with the first fuel supplies hitting the local market by March-April.
Once operational, the refinery will initially process 30,000 barrels per day (bpd) of Angolan crude, provided by national oil company Sonangol, meeting around 5-10% of the country’s demand.
The second phase, expected to commence about 1.5 to 2 years later, will double capacity to 60,000 bpd and add a hydrocracking unit for diesel and jet fuel production, further strengthening Angola’s domestic fuel supply.
This $500-550 million first phase of the refinery project, which has exceeded initial cost estimates of $473 million due to inflation and pandemic-related delays, aims to reduce Angola’s dependence on imported fuel.
With Angola’s drive to eliminate fuel subsidies, this facility is crucial to improving national energy security.
Key components of the first phase include a crude distillation unit (CDU), a desalinator, a kerosene treating unit, and a 1.2-million-barrel storage terminal.
Initial plans had set operations to begin by the end of 2024, but the updated timeline now targets April for fuel production ramp-up to full capacity.
Similar to Nigeria, Angola, Africa’s second-largest oil producer, currently relies on imports for nearly all its refined petroleum needs.
In 2022, Angola imported $2.16 billion in refined petroleum, underscoring the inefficiencies of its current reliance on European fuel imports.
Highlighting this inefficiency, Bostandjiev noted that 98% of Angola’s crude is exported, while nearly 100% of refined products are imported.
The Cabinda refinery will help offset this imbalance by supplying local markets with diesel and jet fuel and exporting surplus fuel and naphtha not required domestically.
