{"id":31946,"date":"2026-04-15T11:43:37","date_gmt":"2026-04-15T09:43:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/?post_type=news&#038;p=31946"},"modified":"2026-04-15T11:43:37","modified_gmt":"2026-04-15T09:43:37","slug":"botswana-has-not-requested-stake-in-lobito-refinery-angolas-sonangol","status":"publish","type":"news","link":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/news\/botswana-has-not-requested-stake-in-lobito-refinery-angolas-sonangol\/","title":{"rendered":"Botswana has not requested stake in Lobito refinery: Angola&#8217;s Sonangol"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>State-owned oil firm Sonangol has not \u200breceived any formal communication from Botswana signalling its desire to acquire a stake in \u200cAngola&#8217;s new $6.6 billion Lobito refinery, a senior company executive said late on Tuesday.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Angola has been seeking partners to help finance the delayed refinery, the country&#8217;s largest and aimed at cutting its reliance on imported fuel, with financing shortfalls \u200band potential partnerships drawing interest from neighbours.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Widespread media reports quoting Botswana&#8217;s Energy Minister,\u00a0Bogolo Joy \u200bKenewendo, in parliament on March 27, suggested that the government was offered and \u2060is weighing options to secure a 30% shareholding in the 200 000 barrel per day plant once \u200bit comes online.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Botswana&#8217;s Ministry of Energy did not immediately respond to multiple requests for comment from Reuters.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>The \u200binformation from the media was surprising, Joaquim Kiteculo, Chief Executive Officer of Sonangol&#8217;s refining division, told<i>\u00a0<\/i><i>Reuters<\/i><i>\u00a0<\/i>on the sidelines of an energy conference in Cape Town, adding that it was Zambia that had aimed to join the Lobito project \u200bsince the beginning.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>&#8220;It was our first time to hear that Botswana is interested,&#8221; Kiteculo said.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Angola and \u200bZambia have a memorandum of understanding covering participation in the refinery. Botswana, a land locked country, is keen to boost storage \u200ccapacity and \u2060diversify its fuel supplies as it also considers partnering with Namibia on their proposed first refinery.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>&#8211;Reuters&#8211;<\/div>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":20458,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false},"news-type":[44],"class_list":["post-31946","news","type-news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","news-type-finance","entry"],"acf":{"short_description":"","published_date":"","news_description":"State-owned oil firm Sonangol","form_embed":"","author":"","image_caption":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/31946","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/news"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/31946\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31947,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/31946\/revisions\/31947"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20458"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31946"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"news-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-type?post=31946"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}