MOSCOW (MRC) -- Angolan oil company Sonangol has terminated a contract with Hong Kong-based consortium United Shine to build the Cabinda Refinery but plans to go ahead with other investors, reported Hydrocarbonprocessing with reference to state news agency ANGOP.
State oil company Sonangol canceled the contract due to "the failure (of the consortium) to submit additional technical, commercial and financial studies to support the project’s completion ... and shortcoming in corporate capitalization," the news agency quoted Sonangol as saying in a statement.
Sonangol has signed a memorandum of understanding with London-based investment firm Gemcorp Capital to finance and implement the 60,000 barrel per day (bpd) project and is also seeking other potential investors, ANGOP said.
Angola, a member of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, imports 80% of its refined products despite producing around 1.5 million barrels of crude per day.
The country suffered some of its worst fuel shortages for years this spring, which led to the sacking of Sonangol chair Carlos Saturnino and prompted Africa’s second largest crude exporter to expand its domestic refining capacity.
As MRC informed before, Italian oil and gas company Eni expects to boost gasoline production at Angola’s Luanda refinery to 470,000 tonnes within two years from the current 110,000 tons a year.
We also reminad that Italy’s Versalis (part of Eni) took its cracker in Dunkirk, France offline in early September, 2019, due to a fire which broke out at the company’s petrochemical plant.Local media sources also reported that the fire was brought under control with no reported injuries. The cracker has a production capacity of 380,000 tons/year of ethylene and 95,000 tons/year of propylene.
Ethylene and propylene are feedstocks for producing polyethylene (PE) and polypropylene (PP).
According to MRC's ScanPlast report, Russia's estimated PE consumption totalled 1,724,670 tonnes in the first ten months of 2019, up by 7% year on year. Shipments of all PE grades increased. The estimated PP consumption in the Russian market in January-October 2019 totalled 1,066,520 tonnes, up by 7% year on year. Supply of block copolymers of propylene (PP block copolymer) and homopolymer of propylene (homopolymer PP) increased, demand for statistical copolymers (PP random copolymer) decreased.
MRC