Congo's new hydrocarbon's minister Bruno Jean-Richard Itoua has issued his first accreditation to the firm Atlantique Petrochimie, the BFDI subsidiary that is supposed to be constructing the Pointe- Noire refinery. But since the laying of the cornerstone in February, the works have been at a standstill. Of the many items in his in-tray, the new hydrocarbons minister Bruno Jean-Richard Itoua has chosen to prioritise the planned refinery in Pointe-Noire (50,000 bpd). Appointed on 15 May, on 8 June he issued an accreditation (published in the official gazette on 17 June) authorising Atlantique Petrochimie to conduct refining operations for the next ten years in the country. A subsidiary of China's Beijing Fortune Dingheng Investment (BFDI), Atlantique had already secured an accreditation in mid-February for the special economic zones (SEZ), which authorises it to construct the future modular refinery in Pointe-Noire in one of these zones with special legal status and associated tax breaks (AI, 16/03/21).
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