CONGO-BRAZZVILLE’S state-owned oil refinery (CORAF) has resumed production after a halt of almost four years due to delayed repairs, officials said on Thursday. The plant in the Central African country’s oil centre of Pointe-Noire is now refining 75 tons of crude an hour. The plant has a capacity of one million tons a year, but has never topped 600000 tons in a single year. The former French colony is one of Africa’s major oil producers but the problems at the refinery meant that it was having to import all its fuel. The restart was possible when the government, emerging from two years of civil conflict, freed up 750 million CFA francs in December to pay for repair work to resolve problems which halted production in 1996.
MUSEVENI URGES END TO BARRIERS
UGANDAN President Yoweri Museveni asked developed countries to open up their markets and stop protectionism as a way of encouraging all-round fair competition. “If advanced countries don’t believe in free trade, let them say so…either we are for free trade or for protectionism,” he told the a meeting of Uganda’s donors in Kampala. Museveni urged Uganda’s partners in development to assist the country to solve the problem of markets for its products so that subsidies to farmers in Europe are removed to allow Ugandan products access to European markets.