PROTECTING RESOURCES’ THEME ADDRESSED DIVERSITY OF OPINION ON AFRICA¹S DOWNSTREAM, ARA- 30 March 2011.doc:‘It is us, human beings, that require protecting and developing most of all, and we are central to the theme of this conference, as all other resources and their longevity impact directly upon us.’
30 March 2011 The welter of uncertainty impacting on the oil products industry has created a wide diversity of opinion on solutions for Africa. This has emerged from deliberations at the 6th annual General Meeting of the African Refiners Association (ARA) in Cape Town this week attended by 300 delegates. The theme of the conference ‘Protecting and Developing our Resources’ was interpreted and addressed by a diversity of speakers, all of them industry leaders, who held a variety of opinions on how the African downstream industry should progress. The conference was for the first time this year under the leadership of Anabela Fonseca, the newly appointed head of the Association and its first woman President. The appointment of this Vice President of the Angolan national oil company, SONANGOL, was widely applauded by members. In her address, Fonseca said that the theme of the conference had broad implications for resources including oil; financial resources; technological resources and what she described as the most important of all - human resources. ‘It is us, human beings, that require protecting and developing most of all, and we are central to the theme of this conference, as all other resources and their longevity impact directly upon us.’ She said that financially, the industry competed for the necessary backing for projects and quite rightly, only the best projects passed the bank tests. As far as technological resources were concerned, she said, it was easy to talk of technology transfer, but it was ‘up to us to find means to achieve it and go further to develop our own innovative technology services.’ Nurturing and developing human resources was the subject of in-depth discussion in a special session of the conference. The conference recommitted to the pursuit of improved product quality Africa which has been identified as a major objective to improve health conditions in many major African cities. The ARA members pledge to achieve ARA’s Afri 2 level of specifications by 2010 was reviewed and discussed. ARA urged all Members and Associate Members to align themselves with this vital stepping stone towards the 2020 goal of Afri 4 and with this objective they renewed their commitment to the World Bank’s request for a combined investment plans for Sub-Saharan African refineries to meet Afri 4 by 2020. 30th March 2011 RENEE HUXHAM MEDIA CO-ORDINATOR Cell: 084 702 1008 Fax: 086 626 8655 mailto:[email protected][ ] Posted in: Press Releases -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "JFD info" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/jfdinfo?hl=en.
