CAPE TOWN – Mestosync Energy on Monday announced that it had commenced with plans to build a 400 000 barrel-per-day crude oil refinery and petrochemical industrial complex at the site of the Coega Special Economic Zone (SEZ).
The black-owned, Port Elizabeth-based company said the project was estimated to cost $15 billion (R215bn) and would lead to the creation of much-needed jobs for Port Elizabeth and the Eastern Cape.
Mestosync Energy was recently issued with a manufacturing licence by the Department of Energy (DoE), in terms of the Petroleum Products Act, as amended.
The company’s executive chairperson Loyiso Nkantsu said Mestosync was in discussion with critical stakeholders, potential partners and funders, which would lead to a conclusion of financial negotiations by the end of November 2018. “These discussions are at a sensitive stage, within the parameters of confidentiality.
“A group of entrepreneurs from the Eastern Cape have since 2014 been investigating the feasibility of pursuing the Refinery project and came to the conclusion, after careful consideration of all the factors, that the Refinery is still a viable proposition.
“The driving consideration for this initiative, is a shared patriotic vision for the upliftment of the economic conditions of the people of the Eastern Cape, the transformation energy economics of the Republic of South Africa and the achievement of the National Development Plans, for our future sustainability,” said Nkantsu.
Together with Nkantsu, the Directors of Mestosync Energy include, Mpumelelo Tshume, the founding chief executive of PetroSA, South Africa’s national oil company, and Pasco Dyani a Port Elizabeth businessman and the former President of the Chemical, Energy, Paper, Printing, Wood and Allied Workers Union.