Africa's Largest Oil Blending and Storage Terminal Sited North of Cape Town

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Written by Richard Finlayson, Senior International Editor for Industrial Info Resources (Sugar Land, Texas)--Africa's largest specialist oil blending and storage terminal will be constructed at the South African port of Saldanha, 100 kilometers north of Cape Town on the Southern Atlantic coast. Situated strategically on one of the world' s busiest sea trade routes, the port, which has a naturally protected harbor, is already established as a major iron ore exporting terminal.

The terminal is designed to supply international refineries and will have the capacity to hold and blend crude from six very large supertanker crude oil carriers (VLCCs) each with a capacity of 2 million barrels of oil. The terminal will have a total capacity of 13.2 million barrels and will consist 12 concrete tanks, each with a capacity of 1.1 million barrels. The square tanks will measure 110 meters on each side.

The facility will be capable of blending the light sweet crude from West Africa with the heavy sour crude from South America and has the potential to become established as a global crude transshipment hub focused on certain established trade routes.

The project site will cover 24.5 hectares and is adjacent to South Africa's strategic fuel fund (SFF) association tank farm. The blending facility will use SSF's existing infrastructure, including the fixed berth jetty, which is reported to be the only berth in South Africa that can handle VLCCs.

Africa Oil & Gas executive Pieter Coetzee said that the development and design work for the new terminal had been executed in South Africa and that the project would be one of the largest blending facilities in the world and the largest in Africa.

The consortium that will operate the project includes Oiltanking Gmbh Grindrod (Johannesburg), Calulo Holdings, and Mining Oil and Gas Services (MOGS), a subsidiary of Royal Bafokeng Holdings (Johannesburg). Oiltanking Grindrod Holdings is a joint venture of shipping and bulk liquid specialists Grinrod and its black empowerment partner Calulo Terminals. Oiltanking is a subsidiary of Marquard &Bahls (Hamburg, Germany), the second-largest independent tank storage provider for petroleum products, chemicals and gases worldwide. Africa Oil & Gas was formed by MOGS to implement the buildings schedule.

Coetzee said that construction on the first tank was scheduled to begin by the first quarter of 2014 and the entire project would be completed by the first quarter of 2017.

"Port of Saldanha Bay is an excellent location for a crude oil hub as it is close to strategic tanker routes from key oil producing regions to major oil consuming market," said Coetzee.

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