Governor Okalia hails SONARA’s expansion project

The Governor of the Southwest Region, Bernard Okalia Bilai, has hailed the management of the National Oil Refining Corporation, SONARA, for the tremendous amount of work already covered for phase I of the Corporation’s expansion and modernisation project.

Governor Okalia was seemingly delighted on January 8, when he was informed by top managers of SONARA that phase I of the FCFA 625 billion expansion project and modernisation will be completed by October this year.

Governor Okalia was in SONARA as a stop-over during his Socio-economic tour that took him round the five Subdivisions of Fako from January 6 to 9, 2015. During the tour, the Governor visited over 50 public, para-public and privately companies and businesses and many on-going state-run and private projects within the Fako Division.

At SONARA, Okalia was received on behalf of the General Manager, GM, who was unavoidably absent, by a battery of top officials of the Company led by the Technical Adviser to the GM, Evelyn Martins. Martins was accompanied by another Technical Director, Epey Mbeng, the Director of Public Relations, Communications and Translation, Blasius Ngome, the Project Manager of phase I of the Expansion Project, Derrick Takere, among others.

Okalia was visiting SONARA almost two years after Ibrahim Talba Malla, took over as GM.

Martins, in her welcome address, treated the Governor to some of the remarkable structural reforms which Talba Malla has instituted in SONARA, which, according to her, have been the push behind the gallant successes registered from February 15, 2013 till date.

“You remember when the GM was appointed by the Head of State, President Paul Biya, on the 15th of February, 2013, and installed on the same day, in your presence, by the Minister of Water and Energy, Dr. Basil Atangana Kouna,” Martins said.

She also reminded Governor Okalia that before becoming GM, Talba Malla, served as a Board member of the company. She said for over two years, the GM has not only exhibited his managerial skills and savvy, but has changed SONARA to a more progress oriented company, with greater job satisfaction to workers and better motivation to work. This, she said, shows that the President did not make an error in entrusting SONARA to Talba Malla.

“The GM’s understanding of SONARA was facilitated by the fact that he was a Board Member of SONARA. To Talba, it became crystal clear that workers needed job satisfaction and an improvement in working and social conditions… the administration of SONARA needed to be reviewed with the application of procedures applicable to all,” Martins further stated.

She listed various structural reforms that their new GM took in order to boost performance at SONARA and which, consequently, accelerated the pace and spirit of the expansion project.

“The first phase of the extension project needed to be finalised in order to… increase the production capacity and profitability of SONARA,” Martins stated. Talking about phase I of the expansion and modernisation project, Dr. Derrick Takere, who is in charge of it, informed the Governor that phase I of the multi-billion project will be completed by October this year.

He stated that work on the construction of the mechanical units or installations for the first phase are expected to be complete by March. But that, between March and September, the construction engineers will progress to connect the new units to the rest of the Refinery and, during this time, they will also carry on tests to ensure their workability.

Takere said the expansion project will, among other things; enable SONARA to increase its production capacity from the current 2.1 million tons to 3.5 million per year of petroleum products.

He added that, at the moment, SONARA refines crude oil, but much of it is bought from Nigeria and Equatorial Guinea with a very small amount coming from Cameroon.

But by October 2015, when the phase I must have been completed, SONARA would be producing more of crude oil from Cameroon and the CEMAC countries and less of it from other countries such as Nigeria.

“We want to rely more on producing crude oil that comes from Cameroon,” Takere said.

As concerns what has already been realised for phase I, he said a new tanker parking lot has been constructed, which can take about 100 oil tankers at a time; a new blast proof control room is already in place, a new storage tank for crude oil has been built and several others for the preservation of finished products.

Takere stated that, with the expansion project, a new gas flare terminal will be constructed, the water and electricity production plants will have to be expanded and other installations still have to be put in place. A hydro- cracking unit, he said, is envisaged for the phase II of the expansion project.

In all, he said, the project will gulp up FCFA 625 billion. Phase I of the project will consume FCFA 225 billion, while FCFA 400 billion will be used in phase II.

Ngome remarked that the SONARA expansion project is, “Cameroon’s largest project in terms of size and financing.”

In response, the Governor thanked the management of SONARA under the leadership of their GM, Talba Malla.

He said his coming to SONARA was to know and understand how the project was moving on and to find out about some of their difficulties and see how solutions can be sought.

He remarked that SONARA, which provides Cameroon and international markets with finished products such as gasoline, super, jet fuel, kerosene, cooking gas, among others, has a very strategic role to play as far as providing fuel to Cameroonians for their ambitious projects and well-being.

Governor Okalia thanked the SONARA staff and encouraged them to complete phase I of the expansion and modernisation project this year.