Page 7 - MEOG Week 43

MEOG PIPELINES & TRANSPORT MEOG

Goreh-Jask pipeline 60% complete

IRAN AN oil pipeline that will allow Iran to ship oil started about one month ago.”
exports without needing to send tankers through Iran began work on the pipeline in April with
the Strait of Hormuz chokepoint is 60% complete President Hassan Rouhani saying that the 1mn
and on schedule. barrel per day conduit would allow crude exports
The 1,000-km-long pipeline will run from from Jask to increase. “Jask will turn into Iran’s
Goreh near the Persian Gulf port city of Bushehr key hub of oil exports,” he added. At present the
to the port town of Jask in southern Hormozgan Kharg Island terminal in the Gulf accounts for
province on Iran’s Gulf of Oman coastline, from 90% of the country’s oil exports.
where tankers can set sail to the Arabian Sea and Of the $1.8bn total project cost, the Goreh-
wider Indian Ocean. Jask pipeline is anticipated to come in at around
Last week, Touraj Dehqani, deputy CEO of $1.1bn, with the remainder being spent on the
the Petroleum Engineering and Development development of the port. The Jask port will
Co. (PEDEC), said that the pipeline would allow feature 20 tanks with a total storage capacity of
parent firm the National Iranian Oil Co. (NIOC) 10mn barrels of crude, with plans in plans to
to export its first oil cargo from the Jask terminal expand export infrastructure.™
by the end of the current Iranian calendar year,
which concludes on March 20, 2021.
Dehqani made the announcement following
meetings with contractors and project managers.
“It is necessary for pipe manufacturing com-
panies to make extra efforts for timely delivery of
the entire length of pipes required for the project
within the next three months and send it to the
workshop,” he said.
He added that “in the storage tanks section
of Jask terminal, parts of sheets have been made
and the welding operations of the tanks have

Brooge starts groundwork

for storage expansion

UAE UAE storage developer Brooge Energy has (6.3mn barrels), from the current 2.5mn barrels.
begun preconstruction work on a phase-three The company’s Phase-1 and Phase-2 facilities
expansion at its storage and terminal hub in are fully contracted on a multi-year basis, and it
Fujairah. has said before that it will not commit fully to
The work underway includes a soil investiga- Phase 3 until those planned units are fully con-
tion and the environmental impact assessment tracted as well.
(EIA) report. Brooge hired MUC Oil & Gas Finding clients is unlikely to present much of
Engineering Consultancy to carry out technical a problem, given global storage levels have risen
studies on the expansion plan in April. to unprecedented highs this year owing to the
Under that contract, MUC will design 2.1- destruction to demand caused by coronavirus
3.5mn cubic metres (13.2-22.0mn barrels) of lockdowns. Uncertainty about how long it will
storage space for crude oil and refined fuels, as take to get the pandemic under control and geo-
well as a potential 18,000 barrel-per-day (bpd) political instability mean it could take years for
oil refinery. storage levels to slide back to pre-COVID-19
The expansion will position Brooge as the levels.
largest oil storage operator in Fujairah, which Phase-3 is due to be operational in late 2022,
has grown into a major storage site over the years Brooge has said before. While the company does
thanks to its strategic location outside the Strait not disclose which clients use its existing storage,
of Hormuz. Iran has repeatedly threatened to Reuters reported in May that France’s Total had
block the narrow and congested waterway. leased six storage tanks for six months and might
Brooge began hydrotests in August at its extend the contract for a further six months.
Phase-2 oil facilities, which will expand its stor- Beside storage, Fujairah is also among the
age capacity in Fujairah from 1mn cubic metres world’s largest hubs for bunkering.™

Week 43 28•October•2020 www. NEWSBASE .com P7