In the sort of large-scale investment that Côte d’Ivoire has been unable to implement in the troubled past decade, two Houston-based outfits, Energy Allied International (EAI) and WCW International, have announced they will jointly develop a 60,000 b/d refinery and products storage project with state oil company Petroci.
The US firms are expected to select an engineering, procurement and construction company for the $1.4bn facility.
EAI is also looking at a refinery project in Senegal (see below). WCW provides voice and data services to Nigeria and Ghana.
A market study and technical feasibility study have been completed by The Shaw Group as third party technical expert. Financial advisory services were performed by Taylor-DeJongh.
President Laurent Gbagbo met with the developers in September while he was in New York for the United Nations General Assembly. The developers said they had been granted approval to proceed with the engineering and design and would finalise the plans for funding with financial institutions. The project will be led from EAI’s headquarters in Houston.
The refinery is expected to use Ivorian, Angolan, Equato-Guinean and Nigerian crude, and will produce gasoline, jet fuel, diesel oil and butane for sale into West African markets.
Côte d’Ivoire has long held ambitions to develop Abidjan as a major regional centre for the oil and gas industry, but these plans have been held up by the country’s civil conflict. Following a peace accord reached in Burkina Faso in March, which divided power between Gbagbo and the rebel Forces Nouvelles, the country is supposed to be preparing for long-delayed elections.
Côte d’Ivoire’s political crisis has caused serious damage to the regional economy, and has seen the government talk to some unlikely would-be partners.
“The implementation of this new refinery is a much anticipated next step in our vision to make Abidjan and Côte d’Ivoire a major centre for refining and redistribution of high end petroleum products along the West African Atlantic Basin,” said Petroci director general Kassoum Fadika.
A mission from the developers will visit Côte d’Ivoire this month to examine potential sites.
While he was in New York, Gbagbo also held talks with Nigerian President Umaru Yar’Adua and asked for an increase in Côte d’Ivoire’s Nigerian crude allocation of 30,000 b/d. Nigeria has been supplying crude on a government-to-government basis since November 2003, after the Société Ivoirienne de Raffinage (SIR) refinery was found to be using illegally bunkered Nigerian crude.
State newspaper Fraternité Matin reported that Gbagbo and Yar’Adua also discussed prospects for extending the West African Gas Pipeline to Côte d’Ivoire.
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