Ivory Coast has an important export market for refined products in West Africa, including Mali, Burkino Faso, and Liberia. Within Ivory Coast Gestoci supplies the central and northern parts of the country.

But most of the oil products stored at Gestoci are destined for Nigeria, where they originated as crude, after being processed at the Societe Ivoirienne de Raffinage.

Interesting time

N’Guettia’s announcement, however, comes at an interesting time in the country’s history. In August, Ivory Coast exported 898,820 tonnes of oil in this year’s first half, reports said.

That figure marked a 26% decline on the 1.217 million tonnes shipped in the same period in 2009. At the same time, Ivory Coast imported 1.409 million tonnes of crude, mainly from Nigeria, down by 17% on the 1.697 million tonnes imported in the same period in 2009.

However, and here’s the key point, reports also said that the country’s own annual oil production in 2009 was 18.542 million bbl, according to the Ivorian ministry of mines and energy, an increase of 12.3% over 2008.

Moreover, and perhaps more important, Ivory Coast’s oil production may well be increasing even more in the foreseeable future.

According to analyst BMI, on the back of growing investor interest off West Africa, recent years have seen the entrance of several explorers, most notably Anadarko Petroleum Corp. and Tullow Oil PLC.

New discoveries

Anadarko’s alleged discovery of a 1,100-km frontier fairway stretching along the West African coast with the Venus well off Sierra Leone in late 2009 should fuel additional interest in the Ivory Coast’s acreage in the future.

In fact, drilling activity off Ivory Coast is picking up as international oil companies grow increasingly optimistic about the country’s potential resources after rich discoveries over the border in neighboring Ghana.

In mid-April, Lukoil announced promising results from exploratory drilling in Block CI-401 which showed evidence of ample oil reserves and has prompted the company to bring forward plans to drill a second test well in neighboring Block CI-101 in 2011.

Both blocks, located near the maritime border with Ghana’s offshore area, are operated by Lukoil, 56.7%, along with its partners, Vanco Energy 28.3% and Petroci 15%.

Could the new storage facilities possibly have anything to do with those recent discoveries?