Gabon's Sogara Refinery Aims to Narrow Losses, Boost Petroleum Output

Societe Gabonaise de Raffinage, Gabon’s sole oil refinery, is aiming to narrow its deficit and expand production to meet growing demand, the general manager said.

The company, known as Sogara, took “drastic measures” including job cuts to reduce the loss to a projected 2 billion CFA francs ($3.9 million) this year, from 33 billion francs in 2009, Reteno Ndiaye said in a phone interview from the oil hub city of Port Gentil yesterday. The company has recorded losses for the past five years, he said.

Production in the first six months of the year increased to 610,000 metric tons, Ndiaye said. Total output in 2009 was 580,000 tons, he said. Installed capacity is 21,000 barrels per day.

“We can produce 1 million tons of products a year, but at present we are aiming at 900,000 tons,” he said.

France’s Total SA owns about 44 percent of Sogara, and the Gabonese government controls 25 percent. The rest is owned by fuel distributor Petro Gabon, Italy’s Eni SpA and Portofino Assets Corp., a unit of closely held, Johannesburg-based Metallon Corp., Ndiaye said.

Sogara’s crude comes from oil wells owned by Royal Dutch Shell Plc’s Gabonese unit, Total Gabon and London-based Amerada Hess Oil and Gas Ltd., he said.

Oil production in Gabon declined 2.9 percent in 2009 to 229,000 barrels per day, BP Plc said in its Statistical Review of World Energy. Crude for December delivery fell 32 cents to $72.90 a barrel at 8:55 a.m. in New York.

To contact the reporter on this story: Antoine Lawson in Libreville via Johannesburg at pmrichardson@bloomberg.net.

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