Maputo, Mozambique, 4 July – Mozambican company Oilmoz Holding is set to build an oil refinery in the Mozambican province of Maputo with a capacity to process 350,000 barrels of oil per day, shareholder and chief executive, Fausto Cruz said in Maputo Thursday.

The company’s shareholders are Fausto Cruz and Leonardo Simão, former Mozambican foreign minister and chief executive of the Joaquim Chissano Foundation.

The feasibility studies for the project, which is expected to cost US$8.4 billion, will be carried out by PricewaterhouseCoopers e by Petróleos de Moçambique (Petromoc).

According to the CEO of Oilmoz Holding, construction of the refinery will begin in 2009 and end in 2013.

Cruz noted the fuel deficits that Southern African countries have as the reason for Oilmoz building the refinery.

As well as the refinery, the project also includes construction of a petrochemical derivatives plant, a gas-fired power plant, a waste treatment plant, a fuel storage facility and a potential offshore port terminal to transport crude oil, Cruz added.

In 2007, Ayr-Petro-Nacala, a subsidiary of US company Ayr Logistics also announced it planned to build an oil refinery in the port city of Nacala, in the northern Mozambican province of Nampula. (macauhub)