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In an Angolan exclave in the Congo Basin of central Africa, development is progressing rapidly on a new oil refinery that could produce thousands of barrels of oil a day.
The facility, known as the Cabinda Refinery, is expected to produce some 60,000 barrels of oil per day, a crucial injection of petroleum supply into a global market that has been roiled with instability in supply disruptions over the last three years.
Much of the equipment that will power this facility was produced more than 7,500 miles west of Angola, in a locale much closer to home: Houston.
Last summer, equipment intended for the facility passed testing at the VFuels facility in Houston, paving the way for it to be used at the Cabinda Refinery. An extensive round of testing confirmed that the equipment will perform as designed.
VFuels is an oil and gas engineering and design firm that specializes in modular process equipment, according to the company’s website. VFuels has helped bring modular processes to energy production in emerging economies, and maintains a presence in West Africa, Latin America, and Asia.
The scale of VFuels’ work on the Cabinda Refinery has been unprecedented. The Houston firm built the largest single-train crude distillation column in the world as part of the first stage of the refinery’s development, according to a press release issued by Sonangol. Once operational, the distillation column alone will be responsible for the production of 30,000 barrels of oil per day.
This increased production capacity could have profound impacts on Angola’s economy. Despite being Africa’s second largest oil producer and a member of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, Angola imports much of the energy it uses for domestic consumption.
The Cabinda Refinery, in conjunction with the rollout of similar facilities in Soyo and Lobito, could boost Angola’s petroleum production capacity by thousands of barrels every day, lessening its reliance on imports and producing cost-efficient power to help propel forward the country’s burgeoning economy.
But the Cabinda Refinery hasn’t just helped Angolans’ pocketbooks.
The refinery has created more than 500 jobs in Houston, according to Sonangol, producing new opportunities for petroleum industry professionals along the Gulf Coast.
Sonangol, the refinery’s operator and majority owner, is Angola’s national oil company. The national oil company was the principal steward and sole concessionaire of Angola’s vast subsurface resources from the country’s independence from Portugal in the early 1970s until a corporate restructuring in 2019. The company, which is undergoing gradual privatization, remains responsible for exploring, extracting, refining and marketing Angola’s oil and gas.
Over the last half-decade, Sonangol has invested in several key capital projects across Angola, from the Cabinda refinery to energy-efficient offshore platforms in the Kwanza Basin.
In parallel with the Cabinda Refinery, Sonangol is building a facility in the port city of Barro do Dande that will specialize in the production of green hydrogen.
A joint venture with two German engineering firms, the facility will ship green hydrogen directly to Europe, broadening access across the continent to sustainable, low-emission energy at a time when European leaders have walked a careful line of attempting to wean their nations from fossil fuels without precipitating energy shocks.
The country has emerged as an attractive destination for foreign investment over the last decade. Chevron, the American oil company, is currently working with Sonangol to construct a refinery in Soyo, which is projected to become the largest foreign investment in Angolan history.
