CITAC

Attendance up 30% on 2008.

The fourth African Refiners’ Week held in Cape Town on 16th - 21st March found record numbers of delegates participating to both the African Refiners’ Association’s Annual General Meeting and the CITAC downstream oil workshops.

Joel Dervain, the President of the ARA, expressed his delight that African Refiners’ Week had attracted increasing numbers of non-refiners to the conference making African Refiners Week the major event for the African downstream sector. ARA events throughout 2008/9 have been very well attended, especially the Technical seminars for Depot Operations, Inspection, Catalytic Reformers and Rotating Equipment. More of these seminars are planned for 2009/10. This comes as ARA membership continues to grow with membership extended to importers and oil storage operators while the downstream African market continues to evolve. At the same time, Mr Dervain noted the record participation of North African countries at the conference, confirming the Pan-African approach of the ARA.

During the conference, which covered all relevant subjects for downstream operators in Africa, presentations of the first draft results of the joint ARA/World Bank study on Sub-Saharan African (SSA) Environmental Health and Product Quality were made by Eleodoro Mayorga-Alba of the World Bank and by Zeta Rosenberg of ICF International, consultants to the World Bank. The Health Study results indicated that there is a potential for significant health benefits in SSA’s urban areas associated with the use of improved quality transport fuels. Although air pollution in many SSA cities is dominated by indoor use of coal and biomass and by dust from unpaved roads, the utilisation of improved transport fuels will significantly reduce the urban health cost associated with the cases of bronchitis, asthma, lung cancer and other respiratory diseases.

The companion Refining Study looked at the necessary refining impacts and investment that would be required to comply with AFRI-4 specifications for gasoline and diesel (the ARA clean fuel objective). Progress is being made in implementation of the AFRI specifications and preliminary indications of the study are that the economic valuation of the health benefits that would result from upgrading product quality produced by SSA refineries to AFRI-4 (about Euro-3) significantly outweigh the investment required in both West and East Africa.

In addition, the Refining study assessed the effects of keeping all SSA refineries running in their present form as opposed to allowing full competition with refiners in the Middle East, Asia, and other regions of the world that represent current or potential products suppliers. The draft results of the Study will be discussed with each of the ARA member refiners, at the beginning of May with the final report being produced in June 2009.

During the second half of the week, the CITAC Downstream African Oil workshops also enjoyed record attendance (up 40% on 2008) with active interactive discussions on topics as diverse as Oil Trading and the impact on African downstream, the Financing of oil projects in the current credit climate, the quality of information available on downstream Africa and shipping quality and operations.