Oilmoz hopes to have refinery operational by 2014

16 February, 2009 The Mozambican company Oilmoz hopes that it will have an oil refinery up and running in Maputo province by 2014. The company presented its plans for the refinery at a meeting in Maputo on 2 February. Oilmoz Chief Executive Officer Fausto Cruz puts the total cost of the refinery at $8 billion. The refinery would produce 350,000 barrels of fuel a day. The exact location of the refinery has not yet been chosen, but there are five possibilities. Despite this uncertainty, Oilmoz hopes that construction will begin in late 2009 or early 2010. Cruz estimated that the construction would employ 15,000 workers, and that when operational the refinery will provide 2,000 full time jobs. The construction will also include an offshore terminal to receive the tankers bringing the crude oil, water and waste treatment stations, new roads, and a variety of other social and economic infrastructures. Asked who the Oilmoz shareholders are, Cruz refused to give a straight answer, replying simply “it’s a company owned by individual Mozambicans”. But one of the partners of the project is the Joaquim Chissano Foundation, set up the country’s former President. The company has turned to the foundation to assist in matters of “corporate social responsibility”, said the Foundation’s executive director, former Foreign Minister Leonardo Simao, who is also the Oilmoz chairperson. Chissano himself was among those attending the meeting. The chairperson of the board of directors of the state fuel company Petromoc, Mateus Katupha, thought the planned refinery could be of great importance for the national and regional economy, since it would make refined fuels available at a lower price than imported fuels. Katupha argued this would provide an opportunity for Petromoc “to enter the regional market”. Mozambique currently consumes an estimate 17,000 barrels of fuel a day. Since Oilmoz expects to produce 350,000 barrels a day, the bulk of this production will be exported to other countries in the SADC (Southern African Development Community) region. A second refinery, in which the main shareholder is the American company Ayr Logistics, is planned for Nacala in the north of the country. Cruz said Oilmoz was not worried by competition from this refinery. He was sure the market would prove large enough for both of them.