As Angola’s security forces mop up the remaining embers of protests against the 33% increase in fuel prices that have led to the deaths of 30 and injured 277 people, Africa’s third largest crude oil producer remains staunchly an importer of petroleum products.
In May 2025, only 5.6% of Angola’s crude oil production was refined in the country. 94.4% of the product was exported.
Like several other large African economies and petro states, Angola has made gestures at bolstering crude oil refining capacity, without much success.
The country has announced the proposed construction of five crude oil refineries in the last 20 years and has advanced dozens of deadlines for the start of the projects in that time frame.
At the World Petroleum Congress in Johannesburg in 2005, Sonangol, then the all-powerful Angolan state hydrocarbon company, informed the delegates about progress on a planned 200,000Barrels Per Stream Day (BPSD) plant, scheduled for installation in the port city of Lobito (in Western Angola), at a cost of $2Billion-$3Billion. Some 50%-60% of the Lobito plant was envisaged to be owned by foreign investors, with Sonangol allocated the remaining 40%. Ten years after, the project had rolled off to the back of the burner. The Lobito refinery was officially announced in 2002. Feasibility studies began in 2006. On November 5, 2008, Sonangol signed a pre-detailed engineering studies agreement with Kellogg, Brown and Root (KBR), followed on December 9, 2008 by a contract for management, purchasing and construction. These contracts ended up unexecuted.
In 2015, the government of José Eduardo dos Santos, announced plans for the construction of two refineries: a 100,000BPSD refinery in Soyo, at the mouth of the Congo River in the north of the country and a 400,000BPSD refinery in Bengo, a coastal city in the northwest.
Two years after, (in 2017), dos Santos also authorized the construction of a 400,000BSPD petrochemical refinery by two Russian companies: Rail Standard Service and Fortland Consulting Company, in the province of Namibe. Their joint venture called NAMREF, was to pool up to $12Billion worth of investment for a project that would also involve a railway line linking Moçâmedes with Benguela
The Bengo project was cancelled by President João Lourenço, who succeeded dos Santos. The ambitious Namibe Petrochemical project was abandoned in 2019.
The Soyo project, a partnership between Sonangol and the China International Fund (CIF) came to a brief halt after the arrest of the main shareholder Xu Jinghua, the charismatic Chinese businessman better known as “Sam Pa”. It was later revived by President Lourenço and the bid for the construction was won by a consortium led by Quanten, via international tender. Angolan authorities have declared that Soyo will be functional by 2026, but the Soyo refinery has dragged as a result of the inability of the consortium to raise the $3.5Billion for the construction.
The one project that is actively under construction is the more modest, two phase 60,000BPSD Cabinda refinery, first announced in 2017. It hasn’t reached commercial operations yet, but it has advanced closer to fruition than all the other proposals. Initially, it was to be constructed by a company named ‘United Shine’. But the bidding process through which United Shine emerged was cancelled and the project was awarded to London based investment firm Gemcorp on October 30, 2019, in an equity split of 90% to Gemcorp and 10% for Sonangol. Costs hae since escalated, from $300Mllion to $470Million to $950Million with (inclusion, now of) two gas pipelines from the refinery to the Cabinda Ocean Terminal. The original completion date for the 30,00BPSD first phase was last quarter of 2021, which then moved to the end of the 1st quarter 2022. Now the first half of 2025 has ended.
