At a time of distress, the Republic of Congo’s oil minister wrote to the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) secretary general Mohammad Barkindo for an emergency meeting to find a way to keep member nations in Africa from sinking amid the coronavirus crisis.

Roderick Bruce, principal research analyst for Africa at IHS Markit told the media, “Companies are reviewing their whole portfolios on a daily basis. “They (African countries) are in a very difficult position.”

As a result of the oil price war and the coronavirus pandemic, in Nigeria, production is forecast to fall by 35 percent without offshore field investments. Across Africa, Rystad estimates delayed spending could mean 200,000 barrels per day (bpd) drop in expected output by 2025.

While oil producing giants such as Saudi Aramco and Adnoc are increasing production to deal with the price drop, producers in Africa, on the other hand, are struggling to sell their oil.

Angola’s production has dropped significantly from close to 2 million barrels per day a decade ago to 1.4 million barrels of oil per day.

Earlier this month, Saudi Arabia-led OPEC has started a price war after negotiations failed with Russia regarding curbing production in light of the coronavirus outbreak.

Global oil prices by around 30 percent, the highest in the last two decades. However, prices have somewhat stabilised since then.

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Mele Kyari, head of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) told the media that both companies’ investments will cover Nigeria’s upstream, midstream, and downstream sectors.

According to S&P Global, Adnoc and NNPC will meet this week to discuss investment opportunities across upstream, midstream and downstream sectors in the country. However, the midstream opportunities could also include greenfield projects. 

Aramco is in talks with NNPC to supply gasoline to West Africa—and make investments in Nigeria’s energy sector. Kyari said that Aramco is “quite keen on getting the opportunity to supply gasoline to West Africa and we will provide them with the right platform.” 

Both parties will hold discussions in October during an investment conference in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. NNPC is the largest importer of gasoline in West Africa.  

Nigeria’s state oil corporations are seeking more investments, particularly in the midstream sector such as pipelines and refining. The country has outlined a target to pump as much as 4 million barrels per day over a period of six years. Analysts believe that the target is too ambitious to achieve. 

Earlier this year, Nigeria and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia’s oil and energy minister met to discuss the potential opportunities for development in the oil sector. Also, Saudi Aramco’s presence in Sub-Saharan Africa will benefit its global investments. 

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Two of the refineries will be inaugurated in next week, an adviser to Nigeria’s minister of petroleum minister was reported as saying by the Guardian. The refinery plan is aimed at satisfying local demand and export of petroleum products, the adviser said.

The government has given a certain number of refiners import waivers also to support a quick start to the oil refinery projects. Nigeria plans to double its oil production capacity by 2025, while also tripling oil refining capacity.

Nigeria’s goal is to pump 4 MMbopd by 2025 while increasing its oil refining capacity by 1.5 MMbpd.

The desperate need for an improvement in local refining capacity has been obvious for decades. The 2025 plan is extremely optimistic, an analyst for Lagos-based SBM Intelligence was reported as saying by World Oil in April.

Nigeria is the only major world oil producer that relies completely on imported refined petroleum for its fuel needs.

The newly licensed Nigerian oil refineries include a 250,000 barrels licenced refinery of Petrolex and another 100,000 barrels licenced refinery of another company at Port Harcourt. The modular Nigerian oil refineries vary from 30000 barrels to 1000 barrels capacity.

The Petroleum ministry adviser told the Guardian that two Nigerian oil refineries are ready for commissioning soon. These includes a 7,000 barrels capacity modular refinery based in Kwale. The other one is a 10000 barrels capacity oil refinery made up to two modules of 5000 barrel capacity in River State.

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