Senegal plans to start construction of a second oil refinery next year to boost domestic processing capacity, and is seeking $2 billion to $5 billion in investment for the scheme, the CEO of national refining company SAR said on Thursday.
The country has received financing offers from potential investors including China, Turkey and South Korea, Mamadou Abib Diop told Reuters on the sidelines of an African energy conference in Cape Town.
Abib Diop said feedstock for the new plant would come mainly from Senegal’s offshore Sangomar oil and gas field, operated by Woodside Energy with national oil company Petrosen a minority shareholder. The field started producing last year with annual output of 34.5 million barrels, or some 4.6 million tons.
SAR, West Africa’s oldest refinery, processes 1.5 million tons of crude oil a year or around 30,000 barrels a day, but faces a domestic shortfall.
“This gap we will cover with a project named SAR 2.0, which means that we will add a second refinery site in order to add 4 million tons (of processing capacity) per year,” Abib Diop said.
He said by a targeted 2029 production start-up date, SAR wanted to achieve self-sufficiency in domestic supply of petroleum products, as well as potentially exporting to elsewhere in the region.
There is no final decision yet on where the new refinery will be located or if government would take an equity share in its development, Abib Diop told Reuters.
“A lot of investors are coming and giving their interest about financing these projects,” he added.
