By Noela EBOB BISONG
Preliminary studies to rebuild sections of the National Refining Company, SONARA have been launched. Recall a fire explosion which occured in May 2019 left at least four units of the Oil Refinery completely damaged, putting a halt to the Company’s production, rendering it at the level of simply buying and selling.
In a Wednesday, March 19 kick-off meeting between some members of the French company AXENS and senior officials of SONARA, at the Refinery, SONARA General Manager GM, El Hadj Bako Harouna said the meeting is a significant step in line with efforts to rehabilitate the refinery and bring the Company back to it’s strategic position in the oil and gas sector in Cameroon.
Talking about the destroyed sections of the Company which includes Units 10, 30, 40 and 70, the GM revealed that a contract was signed last February 19 with the international company AXENS, for studies to be carried out in line with the rehabilitation programme.
According to Bako Harouna, the signing of the contract some weeks ago and the kick-off meeting constitute the beginning of the rehabilitation process.
The 42-month studies will focus on six aspects including; Market research, in-depth technical and financial study accompanied by a business plan, the configuration chosen for the new refinery which will have to take into account the evolution of specifications for clean fuels, the financial and economic analysis of the new configuration, all plans and technical documents to enable the reconstruction process as well as provide the estimated cost and duration of the rehabilitation work.
In a press chat at the close of the meeting, SONARA’s Director of Conservation and Logistics, Nana Ngongang Arthur, said “Today is a big day because it marks a major step in the rebuilding of our refinery. We are working with the French International Company AXENS, which has a high level engineering in petroleum, to be able to construct a new factory. After the preliminary study, we will move to the basic study and at the end, we will have the construction study. With all the processes, we should be able to have a new factory in the next two years or so”, he said.
The SUN gathered that the new capacity of the refinery will depend on the findings brought forth by the studies. “We intend to have a new refinery with a new design and a new capacity that will cater for the needs of Cameroonians”, Nana explained.
In his reaction, the Vice President of AXENS, Romain Roux said, “We are here to contribute to the defining of the architecture future refinery after reconstruction. We will work on how to maximise the profitability of the refinery and how to deliver other specifications.”
AXENS is a technology company which provides technology for refining.