Downstream Oil Sector: Investors evaluate, prospect growth

Challenges abound as to how to mitigate the high cost of oil and gas. “Oil and gas resources are in most of our economies, an important factor of production and a source of economic and social progress, through their various uses. They determine our energy potential, as well as correlate the industrialisation capacity of our economies and social welfare of our people.”

Bertrand Abegoumegne, General Manager of Rhema Services who is also Promoter of the Cameroon Oil & Gas Lunch 2015 made the assessment during a first-ever forum of investors in the oil and gas sector at the Sawa Hotel in Douala May 6.

The forum of necessity defined conditions of an optimal participation of the downstream petroleum sector to the objectives of economic and social development, in view of helping Cameroon become emergent by 2035.

The liberalisation of downstream refining of crude oil and the processing and purifying of raw natural gas to distribution and trade, including storage and transportation activities fifteen years ago, aimed to bring competition into a revised and sustainable development model.

Review of the more than one decade of activities show that liberalisation has at times strangled the functioning of local companies like the Cameroon Refining Company, SONARA, when imported oil or gas resources arrived later than expected.

Inadequate storage facilities are a major problem. For example, the Cameroon Petroleum Depot Company, SCDP, based in Douala, is faced with the challenge of setting up a storage tank beside SONARA in Limbe.

To this end, participants proposed guidelines for a better contribution of the sector to national economic growth, sought mastery of ways to overcome future challenges and promote the potentials of the sector.

Some investors disclosed that they were leaving with a good idea of improving and updating growths for better reading of the market.

Moderated by Mathieu Mandeng, Chief Executive Officer of Standard Chartered Cameroon, beside a panellist composed of Nazarius Ngubod, Quality Control Coordinator of Gaz du Cameroun, and Louis Marie Tiako Ngandjui, Director of Exploitation at SONARA, among others, the forum sought to propose specific and innovative guidelines in line with trends in the global hydrocarbon industry.