Angola’s new Cabinda refinery exported about 86% of the refined products covered by its disclosed sales data during its first months of commercial operation, with heavy fuel oil and naphtha accounting for most volumes while relatively little diesel reached the domestic market, Expansão reported on September 8.

Of 308,269 barrels sold, 193,108 were exported as heavy fuel oil (HFO) and another 72,042 as naphtha, while 43,119 barrels of diesel were supplied in Cabinda province.

The Cabinda refinery is 90% owned by London-based emerging-markets investment group Gemcorp and 10% by state oil company Sonangol. The export-heavy sales mix partly reflects the refinery’s Phase 1 configuration. Previously, Gemcorp said naphtha and HFO would be exported, while cleaner fuels including diesel and jet fuel would be directed to the domestic market. A planned second phase is intended to add hydrocracking capacity and increase production of diesel and jet fuel.

Commercial operations began on March 11, and about 770,000 barrels of crude had been processed by the end of July. According to Expansão, the refinery said that 110,000 barrels of that crude were associated with diesel production, 165,000 with naphtha and 406,000 with HFO.

Spread across the period, that works out at average throughput of roughly 5,385 barrels per day (bpd), barely 18% of the plant’s 30,000-bpd Phase 1 capacity. By August, however, the Ministry of Mineral Resources, Petroleum and Gas was reporting an operating rate of 15,750 bpd, suggesting that production accelerated sharply once the initial start-up phase was past. Raising average daily throughput remains a government priority for the second half of 2026.

The arithmetic is not entirely tidy. The crude-processing breakdown supplied by the refinery attributes 110,000 barrels to diesel, 165,000 to naphtha and 406,000 to HFO, a total of 681,000 barrels — 89,000 short of the reported 770,000 barrels processed. The refinery separately reported producing about 15,000 barrels of Jet A-1 aviation fuel but did not disclose sales figures for it.

The Cabinda refinery's first 30,000-bpd phase cost $473mn, according to the ministry, and Gemcorp is already planning a second phase that would double capacity to 60,000 bpd. Expansão puts the additional investment at about $700mn, with technical studies due for completion in November 2026 and construction targeted for the start of the third quarter of 2027.

The Offshore Import and Export System, designed to let products be shipped directly from the Cabinda plant, was 61.2% physically complete in August. That infrastructure matters because Angola’s refining paradox remains striking. The country produces about 1.05mn barrels of crude oil per day and ranks among Africa’s leading exporters, yet has historically imported roughly 70% of the refined petroleum products it consumes.

The government now wants to turn that mismatch into an industrial opportunity, using new refineries, storage and logistics assets both to substitute imports and to build a regional petroleum-trading business. Cabinda is only one part of that effort. At Lobito, a planned 200,000-bpd refinery was 25% complete in August, according to the petroleum ministry. Angola’s 2026 borrowing plan provides for a state guarantee covering $4.8bn of financing Sonangol is seeking from China Development Bank, after the funding failed to materialise in 2025.

The Barra do Dande Ocean Terminal has also expanded Angola’s storage network. The IRDP said installed storage capacity reached about 1.27mn cubic metres by the end of 2025 following the start of operations at the terminal, slightly above the 1.26mn-cubic-metre target under the 2023-2027 development plan.

Together with new refining capacity and improved export links, the build-out is intended to give Angola a larger role in supplying neighbouring markets such as the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Zambia.