Djibouti's ports authority has held talks with a PetroChina delegation on a 300,000-cubic-metre petroleum depot and a possible refinery at Damerjog, and on a crude oil corridor from South Sudan through Ethiopia. No agreement, cost or timetable has been announced.
The chairman of the Djibouti Ports and Free Zones Authority, Aboubakar Omar Hadi, has met a delegation from PetroChina International (Middle East), led by its deputy general manager, Hu Weiqiang, to discuss investments in Djibouti's energy sector, Ethiopian Business View, Capital and the Horn Economic Review reported. The talks were held at the Red Sea World Centre in Djibouti.
The proposals include a petroleum storage depot with a capacity of 300,000 cubic metres on a 20-hectare site at Damerjog Industrial Park, south of the capital, and a possible oil refinery. The two sides also discussed a crude oil corridor of about 1,550km running from South Sudan through Ethiopia to Djibouti, crossing ground up to 2,400 metres above sea level. According to Ethiopian Business View, a route assessment presented at the meeting identified this corridor as the preferred option. South Sudan's Dar Blend and Nile Blend crude would be exported through the Damerjog Liquid Bulk Port.
All the reports stress that the talks are exploratory. No agreement, construction cost or timetable has been announced, Dawan Africa noted.
Why it matters
South Sudan exports its oil through pipelines across Sudan to Port Sudan, a route the war in Sudan has repeatedly disrupted. The idea of a route through Ethiopia to Djibouti is not new. The two countries signed a memorandum of understanding after South Sudan's independence in 2011, and President Salva Kiir discussed the idea with the chairman of China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) in September 2024, according to the Horn Economic Review. PetroChina is part of CNPC, which holds a 41% stake in the Dar Petroleum Operating Company, operator of South Sudan's Blocks 3 and 7.
Damerjog is attracting other energy investors. A $660m refined-products pipeline linking Damerjog with Dewele in eastern Ethiopia, developed with Nigeria's Dangote Group, broke ground in September. It includes a 375,000-cubic-metre storage terminal at Damerjog.
EU security delegation
Separately, on Wednesday 4 November, Foreign Minister Abdoulkader Houssein Omar and Interior Minister Omar Abdi Said, who is also acting defence minister, received ambassadors from the EU's Political and Security Committee, led by Ambassador Lene Vensild. According to the state news agency ADI, the talks covered security and military cooperation and regional issues.
Image: The centre of Damerjog, Djibouti, 2020. Skilla1st, via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0.