The Angolan President expressed his satisfaction on Thursday with the increase in gasoline production capacity by the Luanda refinery, considering it incomprehensible for a country with large crude oil production, but with minimal processing capacity.
João Lourenço, who was speaking at the end of the inauguration ceremony for the gasoline production complex at the Luanda refinery, said that the crude oil produced was almost entirely exported.
We define as a great challenge to face, the correction of this situation is already taking place, not only with the beginning of the construction of the Cabinda refinery, the beginning of the construction of the Soyo refinery and now the inauguration of this unit which will increase the gasoline production capacity of the Luanda refinery by four times”, stated João Lourenço.
The Angolan Head of State stressed that Angola’s goal of remaining increasingly less dependent on import of refined products.
We sold our raw material and basically we buy from the same buyers of our raw material, we buy the finished product from them, which is diesel and gasoline, so we are going to reduce [isso] considerably, in the coming years (…) especially from the moment we have the large Lobito refinery completed and in operation, which will make our country self-sufficient in refined oil,” he stressed.
The Angolan President also mentioned that the country will save “a lot of foreign exchange” on gasoline imports, not only with the inauguration of the Luanda refinery, but also in the set of ongoing projects.
“In two, three years, I believe that the reduction in terms of spending foreign currency on fuel imports will be quite large,” he said.
Angola will save around $300 million (280 million euros), in gasoline imports, with the quadrupling of this oil derivative at the Luanda refinery, going from a production of 395,000 to 1.5 million liters of gasoline per day.
Source: Observadora
