Standard Chartered Bank to Move Angola's Lobito Refinery Project Forward

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Written by Richard Finlayson, Senior International Editor for Industrial Info Resources (Sugar Land, Texas)--Angola's Lobito refinery project in Benguela province has been "under construction" since 2002, but preparations for construction began in earnest at the end of 2012. At the end of 2013, the state-owned oil company Sonangol (Luanda) appointed Standard Chartered Bank U.K. (LSE:STAN) (London, England) to provide financial consulting for the construction of the refinery.

The bank will provide economic modeling for the project, including the development of the funding, budget planning, risk management, auditing and adjustments to the fiscal and trade matrices, Sonangol said. This crucial move on the funding and financial management of the project means that the refinery could be commissioned on re-scheduled dates sometime around 2017-18.

Angola is Africa's second-largest oil producer, but still has to foot the bill for petroleum product imports. The Lobito project aims to reduce the dependency on imports.

The design parameters of the 200,000-barrel-per-day refinery also will allow Sonangol to take advantage of a crude oil feed to the domestically produced acidic heavy crude oil.

The refinery will be built on a 150-acre site and will process crude into unleaded gasoline, diesel, jet fuel, illuminant oil, liquefied petroleum gas (LPG), and limited quantities of sulfur and oil coke. According to Sonangol, the specifications of these products from the high conversion refinery will match those of export target markets, including Europe and the U.S.

In 2008, KBR Incorporated (NYSE:KBR) (Houston, Texas) was awarded the front-end engineering design (FEED) contract; in 2009, KBR announced that it had been awarded a contract to provide license and engineering services for its Orthoflow fluid catalytic cracker (FCC) technology and moderate pressure hydrocracking unit (MHPC). KBR also will deliver diesel hydrotreating (DHT) and kerosene hydrotreating technologies.

For related information, see December 23, 2008, article - KBR Wins Site Development Contract for Lobito Refinery in Angola.

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