Following the signing of a memorandum of understanding in September in Beijing, China, the Société Africaine de Raffine and the SEDIN Engineering group, a subsidiary of the China National Engineering Corporation, are continuing discussions in Dakar.
The Director General of SAR, Mr. Mamadou Abib DIOP was in the delegation of President Bassirou Diomaye Faye to take part in the China-Africa summit. This trip was used by Mr. DIOP to meet technical partners as part of the project to build a second Sangomar crude oil refining site and for the diversification of services such as petrochemicals. During the China-Africa summit, SAR and the SEDIN group signed a memorandum of understanding to see the possibilities of collaboration on the project to build a second refining site. A few weeks after this first milestone, Chinese officials traveled to Dakar to meet with the SAR General Management.
In a meeting with the SR Steering Committee, the Chinese delegation was given a briefing on the current capabilities of the SAR plant and future needs in relation to the ambitions of the SAR20 project.
It should be noted that with the discoveries of gas and oil in Senegal, SAR has initiated an ambitious project to expand its refining capacity and diversify its services to focus on petrochemicals with the aim of covering the needs of the local market in petroleum products. Currently, SAR produces 1,500,000 tons of petroleum products per year, with SAR2.0, this production will be increased to 5.5 million tons per year.
The SEDIN group would not be in uncharted territory if this project were ever entrusted to it. Indeed, the subsidiary of the China National Engineering Corporation has already proven itself in Africa with the construction of the new Dangote refinery in Nigeria with a capacity of twenty million tons of refined products per year.
