Tripoli to rethink Ras Lanuf

Tripoli's plans for a major upgrade of the Ras Lanuf refinery, expected to cost about $2,000 million, may be significantly scaled down.

'It is unlikely that [state-owned National Oil Company] NOC will carry out the full upgrade at this stage,' says a source close to the project. 'It

is more likely to confine the work to the desulphurisation and dewaxing of the existing facility.'

NOC was unwilling to comment on plans to scale back the overhaul of the 220,000-barrel-a-day (b/d) refinery, which is the country's largest. It is evaluating investment proposals for the scheme submitted by a number of international companies.

Meanwhile, repeated efforts to tender an engineering, procurement and construction contract to upgrade Libya's second largest refinery, a 120,000-b/d facility at Azzawiya, have been abandoned, with the project expected to be retendered as a joint venture partnership with NOC (MEED 24:11:06).

While Tripoli is focused is on upgrading existing refining infrastructure, there are also plans to build new facilities.

According to industry sources, Tamoil Africa, an affiliate of NOC, plans to build a refinery near Melitah, and there is also speculation that the US' Occidental Petroleum Corporation is planning a facility in the same area.