VFuels: New refinery promotes energy ties with Angola

A Houston-based oil and gas engineering company last week played host to company and elected officials from around the world to show off a modular factory that is headed to Angola to help promote energy independence.

The gathering May 2, at VFuels coincided with an announcement last week that the new Cabinda oil refinery bound for Angola passed a crucial test at VFuels' Houston facility. Passing the test will provide "a clearer timeline for the equipment delivery to the country," according to the news release provided to Houston Daily by Gemcorp Capital, which is co-sponsoring the project with Sonangol.

VFuels business development director Cody Summerhays. | facebook.com/vfuels1/

"We were honored to host the honorable [Angolan] Minister of Petroleum Diamantino de Azevedo, Sonangol, Gemcorp Capital, members of the U.S. Senate, House of Representatives, and our partners at Odebrecht for the Cabinda oil refinery factory acceptance inspection on [May 2]" VFuels' said in a Tuesday Facebook post. "In a week this unit will head to the port of Houston en route to Angola."

Modular refineries, described on its website as "a simplified refinery requiring significantly less capital investment than traditional full-scale refinery facilities," is one of VFuels' specialties. VFuels entered the modular process equipment field in 2013 and has maintained a modular factory needs in West Africa, Asia, Latin America, "and other developing economies that need valuable fuel refining and gas processing infrastructure."

The modular factory for Cabinda oil refinery that soon on its way to Angola will "help promote energy independence  through U.S. manufacturing," according to Gemcorp's news release. "Currently, Angola is dependent on exporting their crude oil to an increasingly belligerent China and importing expensive refined oil from Europe at a premium," the news release said.

Increasing domestic crude processing capacity will help reduce Angola's dependence on expensive refined product imports, making the entire project "a key step in the economic development of Angola," the release said, adding, "It is also an important example of international development cooperation and of U.S. technological expertise in the space."

The Factory Acceptance Testing that the modular factory passed helps to verify that newly manufactured and packaged equipment will be able to carry out its intended purpose prior to delivery. Once it arrives in Angola, the equipment can be installed and start refining.

The new refinery is expected to have the capacity to purify up to 60,000 barrels of oil per day, once it reaches full operation. The entire project comes with a price tag of about $1 billion, paid in three phases, including the first phase of $350 million, according to the news release.

“Phase 1 will feature a 30,000 b/d crude distillation unit, desalinator, kerosine treating unit, pipelines, and a more than 1.2 million barrels of crude oil storage terminal. Phases 2 and 3 will add another 30,000 b/d of crude processing capacity, as well as units for catalytic reforming, hydrotreating, and catalytic cracking that will transform the site into a full-conversion refinery. Once fully operable, the Cabinda refinery will produce gasoline, diesel, LPG, fuel oil, Jet A1, and kerosine,” stated in a press release. “Work on the Cabinda Refinery has created over 500 jobs in Houston while achieving the construction of a 30,000 barrels per day modular crude distillation column – the largest throughput to date by VFuels, and the largest single-train modular crude distillation unit built to date globally. In Angola the project is expected to create 1,300 jobs in total."