Olena Ilchenko/Shutterstock Save for later Print Download Share The start-up of Nigeria's 650,000 barrel per day Dangote refinery has been a game changer, both for the supply of products in the continent's most populous country and the wider Atlantic Basin trade. It will soon be joined by the 30,000 b/d first phase of Angola's new 60,000 b/d Cabinda refinery. With African refineries covering only an estimated 15% of the region's demand for clean products, according to consultancy Citac, there is plenty of room for growth. But projects have struggled to get off the ground, failing to secure financing, both for capital expenditure and crude purchases. This, coupled with some technical challenges, has prevented Dangote from ramping up to full capacity. Ghana's new 40,000 b/d Sentuo refinery has also had to stop operations less than a year after it was commissioned because of a lack of cash. Zambia shut down its 24,000 b/d Indeni plant in 2022 after deciding not to upgrade it. In Nigeria, a lack of cash forced state-owned NNPC into presales of crude oil, which left it with limited amounts to supply to local refiners. Local Nigerian firm Opac has been unable to run its 10,000 b/d modular plant at capacity, and this has stymied its efforts to fund an expansion to 60,000 b/d. In Ghana, Sentuo's Chinese owner is seeking government support to break the credit crunch, which has kept it off line since late last year. The outage has led to the indefinite postponement of a planned expansion to 100,000 b/d.
