(SenePlus) – An important page in Senegal’s oil history is about to be written. According to information from Jeune Afrique, the country is preparing to take a decisive step by refining its own oil locally from the first quarter of 2025, a major step forward for its energy independence.
The African Refining Company (SAR), headed by Mamadou Abib Diop, is finalizing the last technical adjustments at its facilities in Mbao, a suburb of Dakar. According to JA, the technical teams are currently making final adjustments after having carefully analyzed samples from the Sangomar deposit to precisely determine the sulfur content of the crude.
This strategic shift marks a significant development for the SAR which, until now, only refined Nigerian crude oil. As revealed by a company executive cited by Jeune Afrique, the initial decision not to refine Sangomar crude was “a technical and strategic choice”, justified by the need to wait for the quality of the crude to stabilize. This caution explains why the first cargoes extracted by the Australian Woodside were directed to German and Dutch refineries.
As part of the production sharing agreement concluded between the Senegal Oil Company (Petrosen) and Woodside, Dakar has 20% of total production estimated at 100,000 barrels per day. However, reports the magazine, a major challenge looms: the capacity of the SAR to process all of this national production.
Although a modernization program launched in 2020 aims to increase refining capacity from 1.2 to 1.5 million tonnes annually, current facilities cannot absorb all of local production. This exceeded initial forecasts, reaching 16.9 million barrels between June and December 2024, compared to 11.7 million anticipated, according to figures reported by Jeune Afrique.
Faced with this challenge, the newspaper reveals that Dakar is considering the construction of a second refinery by 2028. This project called “SAR 2.0” would achieve an overall capacity of 5.5 million tonnes per year, sufficient to process the 5.3 million tonnes that Woodside can extract annually from the Sangomar offshore deposit.
This development marks a crucial step in Senegal’s energy strategy, which is moving from the status of a simple producer to that of a country capable of transforming its own oil resources.
