By CHATULA KANGALI –
A DUBAI-BASED investor is set to establish a multi-million dollars oil refinery and processing plant in Luanshya on the Copperbelt.
Kite National Oil Refinery, with the facilitation of the Zambia Development Agency (ZDA), will set up an ultra-modern plant that will be processing used oils, crude oil and hydrocarbons using imported feedstock.
Luanshya Municipal Council (LMC) public relations manager Gideon Thole confirmed this in an interview yesterday.

. Thole

Mr Thole said that the local authority had given the oil company five hectares of land for the construction of the plant.
He said the LMC, ZDA and the oil company were putting in place modalities that would lead to the signing of an agreement soon.
Mr Thole said the company was expected to start the construction of the oil refinery before the end of this year.
He said once completed, the planty would create hundreds of direct and indirect jobs in the mining district.
Mr Thole said that representatives of the Dubai-based investor and officials from ZDA recently conducted a site visit in Mpatamato, Chitwi and Roan townships to identify land suitable for the oil refinery.
Mr Thole said the council later approved the investment, which will be first of its kind in Luanshya and the country at large.
ZDA has already granted an investment licence for the US$2.9-billion Bwana-Mkubwa Oil Refinery and Pipeline project at the sub-Saharan Gemstone Exchange Industrial Park (SGE) in Ndola.
This would become Zambia’s second refinery, and the new pipeline running from Dar-es-Salaam to Ndola which would increase fuel production in the country by an additional five million litres per day.