Mozambican state oil company Oilmoz insists it had reached an agreement with an unnamed American “sovereign trust” to help finance a proposed $12-billion, 350, 000 barrel-per-day oil refinery.
Fausto Cruz, the company’s chief executive, was reported as saying that “we have finalised the funding agreement and we expect to begin construction in the middle of 2013,”, told from Reuters quoted him as saying that funding had been guaranteed for up to $17-billion.
Mozambique doesn’t have crude oil reserves, so it’d have to import that huge volume: 200,000BOPD, from somewhere. Where? Angola?
And who does it hope to export to: Certainly neither Uganda, which is planning own refinery. Nor South Africa, which is working on a 400,000BOPD facility. Mr Cruz reportedly talks about an agreement having been reached for a supply and off-take agreement with an international oil company, and, now this: “50% of output will be earmarked for the domestic market”.
Are you kidding? The Mozambican economy doesn’t have the capacity to absorb fuel that will be produced out of 100,000 barrels of crude oil a day!
Oilmoz has other ambitious plans. The Reuters report says it is considering a gas-fired power plant, fuel storage facilities and a petrochemical derivative plant, together with an offshore port terminal to transport crude to the integrated project.
Mr. Cruz was quoted as saying that the refinery will be funded on a build-own-transfer basis.
