Members of the African Refineries Association, ARA, including SONARA and others drawn from Gabon, Senegal and Ivory Coast met in Cameroon for a three-day knowledge and experience-sharing on project management and or execution.

At the opening of the gathering at the SAWA Hotel in Douala on Wednesday, August 20, the head of the SONARA Expansion Project, Derrick Takere, who represented the SONARA GM, Talba Malla, said he was delighted that such a seminar was held at a time when SONARA was approaching the end of the first phase of its multi-billion expansion project.

Takere said the knowledge to be garnered from the over 20 experts that attended the gathering was going to be very helpful, especially to SONARA in the execution of its ongoing project. The said project by SONARA, Takere noted that is valued at about FCFA 500 billion and is aimed at expanding and modernising its installation to enable SONARA move from just refining light crude, as it currently does, to the production of heavy crude as well.

The President of the ARA Association, Patrice Yao, also leader of the RHSEQ WG, said the seminar was programmed specifically so that they could share experiences in the management of projects.

“It is good that each and every one of us gets the best of this seminar,” Yao said. The gathering had paper presentations on several issues on project management, interspersed with questions, answers and discussions.

In a presentation on the topic, “Project Definition and Development,” one of the expatriates from Technip, Ronald Duigain, stated that the first and most fundamental thing is to be able to get or design the right project from the very onset. Starting off with the wrong project is dangerous,” he said.

He added that a project, by the simplest definition, was any thing you undertake to do in order to either increase the profit margin of your company or refinery or to improve or add value to your products. Duigan further stated that in carrying out a project, every detail, no matter how big or small, should be clearly spelled out.

“No project is too big for the details to be important and no project is too small for the details to be skewed up,” he asserted. For projects to succeed, he stated, the project executors must always take cognizance of bench marks set or of feedback. “Capitalise on experience and tap on feedback,” Duigan maintained.

ARA’s President added that, one issue that usually leads some projects to become bogged down after completion is when the project designers fail to provide or budget for spare parts to be reserved; adding that in the event of a breakdown, some project owners find themselves in a fix, long after the project executors must have gone and a breakdown occurs, leaving no spare part in place for repairs to be carried out instantly.

Other presenters included Arthur Ngongang Nana who dwelt on the EMV tool used to monitor the effective progress of projects in accordance with the level of funding.

Meanwhile, on the real rate of the execution of the SONARA Expansion Project, Daouda Diop, representative of Forster Wheel, the contracting company carrying on the project, stated that the realisation rate now stands at 71.8 percent. Talking about difficulties faced this far, Diop said there wasn’t much, except for the problem of having to transport their materials from Douala Port to the site in SONARA.

Meantime, Germain Koman from Ivory Coast’s Oil Refinery, said they had a lot of experience in Project Management and was glad to be in Cameroon to share their own blue prints.

The Cameroon ARA gathering was held without the presence of 12 members who had to come in from Nigeria. ARA’s President, Yao, said this was very regrettable because Nigeria has some four refineries and representatives from all these four would have been coming with bags and bags of experiences to pass across to the rest of them. He, nonetheless, stated that the Nigerian 12 had to call off their planned journeys to Cameroon at the last minute following the Ebola scare that led to a recent ban on land, sea and air travels between Cameroon and Nigeria.

The ARA gathering, which began with a two-dayseminar in Douala from August 20, ended with a visit by the members to the SONARA Oil Refinery in Limbe on August 22, where they were received by the General Manager of SONARA, Ibrahim Talba Malla and other collaborators of his, among them Takere, Louis-Marie Tiako, Ebong Pende of the Communication Service, among others.

The ARA team was treated to a presentation about SONARA by Gladys Arrey Ebangha, Chief of Public Relations Service at SONARA. She was assisted by the Directors of the Phase I and II of the multi-billion SONARA expansion and modernisation project, viz; Takere and Tiako. The visiting ARA members were later taken for a tour round the refinery where they had the opportunity to see for themselves the progress of work on the first phase of the expansion project.

Talba Malla, who thanked the ARA members for coming, bid them all a safe journey back to their respective countries as they left SONARA after a sumptuous reception party offered by the GM and his collaborators.