In keeping with the 2012 BP Statistical Vitality Survey, Africa had a 2011 refinery capacity of 3317 thousand barrels a day, three.Fifty six% of the world total. Refinery throughput was 2219 thousand barrels a day, 2.Ninety three% of the world complete.

Oil refineries convert crude oil into fuel merchandise, lubricating oils, bitumen and chemical feedstocks.

Prior to 1954 there have been no refineries in Africa. All refined merchandise were provided to Africa from European and American refineries. For many years, Shell and Mobil managed The WARP programme for all of the entrepreneurs working in West Africa. Below this programme, each month Shell arranged a ship from Curacao refinery, and Mobil organized a ship from the UK. All entrepreneurs would request the quantities of every product they wanted, and the ship would make a ilk runalongside the coast. There was an identical arrangement in East Africa.

In the 50 years between 1954 and 2004 48 refineries had been inbuilt Africa. In 1954 the primary African refineries had been inbuilt Algiers (CFP/Complete) and Durban (Socony/Mobil). These had been adopted by the constructing of Luanda refinery (Petrofina) in 1958, and refineries in Kenya (Shell/BP), Ghana (ENI/Agip), and Senegal (consortium), in 1963. Within the 1960 refineries have been additionally in-built Cote dvoire, Gabon, Tanzania, Nigeria (Port Harcourt I), and Capetown. In the 1970, following nationalisation of the oil trade in lots of nations, a number of state controlled refineries had been built, equivalent to Arzew in Algeria, Warri in Nigeria, CORAF in Congo, and SoNaRa in Cameroon. A final burst of refinery constructing befell within the 1980, together with refineries at Warri and Port Harcourt in Nigeria. Whilst there have been a variety of modernisation initiatives since then, the only new refineries constructed previously 10 years have been Khartoum in 2001, and MIDOR in Egypt in2002.

Even whilst refineries have been being constructed, others were already being closed. In 1966 the Zimbabwe refinery closed as a result of sanctions imposed through the UDI period. Between 1980 and 2003 a further 10 uneconomic refineries closed permanently.

All of the refineries are basically of the topping/reforming sort, except for the 4 refineries in South Africa, 2 in Egypt, 3 in Nigeria, 1 in Cote dvoire, and 1 in Ghana, There are additionally 3 Synfuel plants (coal and gasoline feedstock) in South Africa. The overall lively distillation capability for the continent is round 3 million b/d (15 million mt/yr), a median of 79,000 b/d per refinery.

The biggest refinery in Africa is the Skikda refinery in Algeria (300mbd), the second largest the Ras Lanuf plant in Libya (220mbd). In Sub Saharan Africa the largest are the Port Harcourt refinery I and II in Nigeria (210mbd), and the Shell/BP Sapref refinery in Durban (165mbd).

Excluding some specialty plants (remote areas, bitumen) the smallest working refinery is the 14mbd Solimar refinery in Madagascar, which operates solely occasionally. There are a number of small 20mbd refineries including Sogara Gabon, Indeni Zambia, SAR Senegal and CORAF Congo.

The most important refining centres in Africa are in South Africa, Nigeria, Egypt and Algeria.

South Africa has four refineries and three synfuels plants.

All the South African refineries have undergone major expansions and upgrading since 1990.

Nigeria has three refineries, all owned by the Nigerian National Petroleum Firm, NNPC. The Nigerian government has introduced its intention to sell fifty one% of every of the refineries in 2004.

The Nigerian oil trade has been impacted critically by operational problems throughout latest years, and manufacturing has been under 50% of capability.

Egypt has 9 refineries largely concentrated within the northeast (Cairo, Alexandria, Suez). Egyptian Normal Petroleum Corp (EGPC) operates all however one of many refineries. The exception is the MIDOR Refinery in Alexandria.

Algeria is one other major refining centre with four refineries.

The 6,000 b/d refinery in In Amenas was shutdown in 1986.

Many African refineries have been compelled to close a results of low worldwide refining margins, small native markets, excessive working value (as a consequence of small size), and poor yields. Following the World Financial institution/IMF insistence on market liberalisation within the early 1980, many of the remaining refineries have faced important challenges.