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The Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries on Tuesday said about $450bn worth of new refinery projects and expansion of existing units would be invested in Nigeria and other developing nations.
It said the investments were part of the estimated $1.5tn that would be invested in the downstream sector of the oil and gas industry from this year till 2045.
The Secretary-General, OPEC, Sanusi Barkindo, disclosed this at the African Energy Week in Cape Town, South Africa. Our correspondent obtained his address in Abuja.
Barkindo said, “In terms of downstream investment, we estimate a total of roughly $1.5tn will be spent during the period 2021-2045.
“$450bn of this will be invested in new refinery projects and expansions of existing units. Most of these projects will be located in developing countries, including Africa.”
He added, “Indeed, the importance of creating an investment-enabling environment is a further key conclusion from the World Oil Outlook. Cumulative oil-related investment requirements amount to $11.8tn in the 2021-2045 period.
“Of this, 80 per cent, or $9.2tn is in the upstream, with another $1.5 and $1.1tn needed in the downstream and midstream, respectively.”
He observed that creating the stability in the oil market necessary to attract the required levels of investment had been one of the primary motivations behind OPEC’s collaborative efforts with 10 non-OPEC countries under the “Declaration of Cooperation” umbrella.
“This pioneering framework for multilateral energy cooperation continues to contribute greatly to the post-pandemic economic recovery as a vital stabilising force in the global oil industry,” the OPEC scribe stated.
Barkindo, however, told participants at the event that last year’s oil demand shock caused by the COVID-19 pandemic resulted in numerous refinery closures worldwide, and that there would be additional closures in the coming years.
He further stated that looking ahead, from 2021 to 2026, OPEC was expecting to see around 6.9 million barrels per day of new refining capacity to come online, mostly in the Middle East, Asia-Pacific and Africa.
He said Africa’s potential refining capacity was expected to start increasing in 2022 at just below 0.4mb/d, before reaching just above 1mb/d in 2026.
Barkindo stated that many of these projects would involve petrochemical integration.
