Africa, the continent that produces 12% of the world’s crude oil, might face having to import more and more refined fuel to meet its burgeoning product demand unless significant funding starts to flow for refinery modernisation. This new capital is needed to produce the cleaner fuels increasingly demanded by African consumers and to avoid the dumping of poor quality products from other regions of the world.
This is one of the most urgent subjects for discussion at the African Refiners Association (ARA) annual conference in Cape Town from March 28 to 30, whose theme Developing & Protecting our Resources reflects the African continent’s need to not only develop financial and human resources but also not to lose its technological expertise to other parts of the world.
Today the African refining industry finds itself facing increasing competition from worldscale plants being built in the Middle East, India and the Far East. But rather than promoting protectionism, the ARA is challenging investors to develop existing refineries in Africa to meet new cleaner product specifications, and to expand to meet increasing African demand. Key steps in this effort are for governments to promote an orderly process to improve product quality and for ARA members to support the Moroccan based Academy of African Refining & Environment that has recently been created to promote sharing of best practice across Africa on refining, technology, environment and human resources.
The conference, which is the major part of ARA Week is being held in Cape Town, and will be attended by representatives of the refining, supply and marketing industries and delegates from allied industries that are active on the continent. Keynote speaker will be the CEO of Angola’s Sonangol, Eng. Manuel Domingos Vicente. He and an impressive array of experts in their field will address all the major players involved in the downstream oil sector, notably bankers, governments, refiners, energy regulators and international and local oil traders.
The ARA was formed in 2006 to provide a pan-African NGO for the African oil supply, refining and distribution industry. It represents 36 of the 44 refineries in Africa as well many product importers, storage companies and government regulators. Its annual conference is the foremost meeting place for downstream oil in Africa. READ ORIGINAL DOCUMENT
For further details see www.afrra.org or contact the ARA on info@afrra.org