Privately owned Sahara Group is looking to significantly increase its interests in Africa’s refining sector to take advantage of its trading of refined products in the continent, its executive director said Monday.
“The market has changed now. From your traditional typical trading [house], now you have to invest in infrastructure and provide some sort finance,” Tope Shonubi, said on the sidelines of the African Refiners Association conference in Cape Town.
“The market has evolved. You cannot just trade alone. There must be added value.”
Sahara is negotiating with Total to buy the French oil company’s stakes in refineries in Cameroon, Cote d’Ivoire and Senegal and it is also looking to take a controlling stake in Zambia’s only refinery, Shonubi said.
“Our objective is to upgrade all these refineries. It is strategic for us to be shareholders, it is strategic to ensure that because of our participation in the value chain and both in the crude supply and in products we have to make sure we have to maximize what we are doing.”
Sahara, an Africa-based energy and infrastructure conglomerate, has interests in crude and oil products trading along with a growing business in the upstream midstream and refining business in Africa and Europe.
Source: S&P Global Platts
