[2007-11-15]  Ivory Coast starts construction on second oil refinery
 Ivory Coast on Wednesday started construction on its second oil refinery, which will have a processing capacity of 60,000 barrels a day (bpd).

"Ivory Coast is not yet a large oil producer, but we will be," President Laurent Gbagbo said.

The refinery will "strengthen our position and ensure that our needs will be covered", he added.

Construction of the refinery on a 400-hectare (988-acre) site in the Vridi district of Abidjan, the economic capital, will take just over three years to complete.

It is being funded by US energy firms, Energy Allied International and WCW International, in partnership with the local national energy group PETROCI.

Its 60,000 bpd capacity translates to three million tonnes of oil per year - which will help contribute to the "resolution of the thorny problems of refining in west Africa," said Kassoum Fadika, PETROCI general manager.

"Angolan, Nigerian and possibly Congolese crude oil will be treated in the future refinery which targets the American market," Fadika said.

The public-owned refining firm Societe Ivoirienne de Raffinage (SIR), which manages the Ivory Coast's other refinery, also located in the same industrial neighbourhood of Vridi, can process 70,000 bpd or 3.5 million tonnes of oil a year.

Ivory Coast is the leading oil producer in the eight-nation Economic and Monetary Union of West African (UEMOA), which excludes Nigeria, the top oil producer in sub-Saharan Africa.

UEMOA also recorded a 43% increase in petroleum exports last year compared to 2005 with revenues totalling €2.3 billion ($3.4 billion).


Source: businessafrica.net