Killing INDENI AND TAZAMA
By Amb. Emmanuel Mwamba
To guarantee energy security, founder President, Kenneth Kaunda built key strategic national assets; TAZAMA Pipeline, INDENI Refinery and Ndola Fuel Terminal Depot(NFT) at great cost.
The upstream component comprised crude oil exploration, production and transportation, while the downstream industry involved product refining, transportation, storage, distribution and retail.
Indeni in its current form is a cracker that handles comingled crude feedstock through TAZAMA.
From this crude feedstock, the Refinery produces five products;(a) unleaded petrol (b) automotive gas oil (c) industrial kerosene (d) domestic kerosene (e) Jet fuel.
Because of both issues attributable to capital,middle-men and the powerful cartels that benefit from importation of finished products, INDENI has been on care-and-maintenance since 2019.
To upgrade INDENI Refinery to handle full crude oil,it requires about $500m.
INDENI Refinery needs a new unit called a Diesel Hydrotreater which would cost approximately US$250 million , to enable it produce low sulphur diesel in compliance with SADC Regional Framework for Harmonisation of Low Sulphur Fuels and Vehicle Emission Standards.
The refinery also requires a cracking unit that would enable it to process pure crude oil which was a cheaper feedstock as compared to the spiked crude oil.
On TAZAMA, extensive rehabilitation works have been undertaken since 2017 and over 700km out of 1,710km of works have been completed.
The objective of the project was to rehabilitate the Pipeline and its auxilliary systems to prevent further losses of crude oil through leakages, avoid environmental damage in Zambia and Tanzania.
On Ndola Fuel Terminal, barked on expansion project and built Provincial Bulk Storage Facilities in Ndola, Lusaka, Mpika, Mongu Fuel depots. Others were Mansa, Choma and Chipata bulk depots.
Their Plans
They have retrenched all INDENI workers.
They want to convert INDENI into a blender and will be given a business model to run storage facilities!
On TAZAMA,it will converted to handle finished products ( conaultants have highlighted too many risks with that pursuit as finished products becomes instant “liquid gold” and will be highly susceptible to vandalism and difficult.to police a 1,700km ) and requires investments of over $1.5 billion.
Their plans will kill both INDENI and TAZAMA, as key national strategic assets for a landlocked country like Zambia.