Trinity Energy Ltd, South Sudan’s largest independent energy company specializing in petroleum products and related services plans to build a US$ 500M crude oil refinery plant at Paloch, the oil-rich Upper Nile State of the East African country.
Robert Mdeza, the firm’s Chief Executive Officer says that they are already making steady progress towards the realization of the refinery project. “We have identified and secured land as well as concluded the feasibility study and the designs for the refinery. We have also engaged Chemex Global, an American based full-service EPC/EPCM firm that offers a boutique service experience for modular and conventional refinery and energy construction projects as the project manager for this project,” explained the Trinity Energy Ltd C.E.O adding that they are close to tying up project preparatory work financing from Afreximbank, which will aid in the engineering and design work for the facility.
Also Read: Sudan, Ethiopia to construct a joint cross-border oil pipeline
When the future oil facility is expected to be operational
The future oil facility with an initial capacity of 40,000 barrels per day (bpd) expandable to 200,000bpd, featuring petroleum storage facilities at Nesitu in the south region of the country, is expected to be operational in two to three years time. It is planned to start the distribution of refined petroleum products to Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, and the Democratic Republic of Congo by road owing to the absence of railway and pipeline connectivity between these countries.
South Sudan has the third-largest oil reserves on the African continent after the republics of Libya and Nigeria in the North and West African regions respectively, estimated at 3.5 billion barrels and much of it is yet to be explored mainly due to political instability, poor governance, corruption, and war which has barred many investors from investing in the East African country’s oil industry.