Ethiopia’s private oil marketer plans to spend $5 billion to build a refinery in the country within the next 10 years to meet a growing demand in the horn of Africa country that has had one of the highest growth rate over the last decade, Reuters reported.

Tadesse Tilahun, the chief executive of National Oil Ethiopia, said a decision to build a refinery that could produce between 200 000 to 300 000 barrels per day was in the pipeline.

“It is a firm plan because oil demand is growing in Ethiopia… about 10 percent each year from the annual consumption of 3 million cubic meters and in the next 10 years we expect that to double,” Tilahun told Reuters at an African oil refining conference in Cape Town. “I would assume in the next 10 years we should have the refinery on the ground.”

According to Forbes, National Oil’s shareholders include Saudi billionaire Mohammed Hussein Al Amoudi, whose investment portfolio in construction, gold, hotels and energy has helped amass an estimated fortune of over $10 billion.

If brought online, Ethiopia’s refinery will jostle for space in the African market with imports from India and the Gulf and would help other east African countries that have over the last few years discovered large deposits of hydrocarbons extract value from these finds.

Eastern Africa is the latest frontier in the global hydrocarbon hunt after gas discoveries off Tanzania and Mozambique and oil finds in Uganda and Kenya, Oil Review Africa reported.