Oil Refining: SONARA Technical Shutdown On Course

The scheduled production halt will permit the company connect phase one of its extensions and modernization projects to existing installations.

Production at the country’s lone petroleum refining facility is on a halt since Sunday April 15, 2018. The technical shutdown of the National Refining Company (SONARA), which officials say was “programmed”, is expected to last till July 2018.

Company officials say the rehabilitation works will enable SONARA to connect phase one of their extension and modernization project to existing installations in relation to the end of the first phase of the SONARA project.

Though production has been temporarily stopped, supply will not be affected, Ibrahim Talba Malla, General Manager of SONARA assured. “Measures have been taken to ensure the continuous supply of refined petroleum products to the national market until the relaunch of production,” the General Manager stated in a press release sent to Cameroon Tribune.

According to Blasius Ngome, Director of Public Relations, Communication and Translations of SONARA, the shutdown for maintenance is periodic – every five years. He said enough stock of petroleum products is always kept to respond to local demand during such periods of stoppage.

It should be recalled the government recently contracted an FCFA 44.6 billion loan from the International Islamic Trade Finance Corporation (IFTC); an autonomous entity within the Islamic Development Bank Group, to boost the production...