With growing energy demand and rapidly rising population, the African Refiners and Distributors Association has said delivering, “Refineries of the Future”, is the continent’s best option to lowering environmental footprint of existing refineries and averting looming potential public health issues.
While only 20 countries in Africa have refining operations, with their capacity utilisation already down to 55 per cent on average, Kragha stated that existing refineries would need to be upgraded to produce AFRI-6 fuels in line with ARDA AFRI Fuels Roadmap. This overall situation has, according to him, resulted in Africa’s petroleum products shortfall growing significantly over the years, a development, which poses significant concerns for the continent’s energy security.
While stressing that measured, decade-by-decade Sustainable Finance Plan would be required to ensure investments are made to deliver a unique African Energy Transition Plan, Kragha said digitalization, machine learning, decarbonization, safety and reliability, efficiency and funding were key to refineries of the future in Africa.