Page 7 - AfrOil Week 20 2021

AfrOil COMMENTARY AfrOil

Lokichar-Lamu pipeline route map (Image: LAPSSET)
Ethiopia has already acquired a stake of 19% in KPA also said in 2019 that it would off a 30-day
Berbera Port, while DP World is involved in a free storage period for transhipment and tran-
$442mn project to increase cargo capacity there sit cargo and a 14-day free storage period for
by 500,000 TEU per year. Meanwhile, Addis domestic cargo.
Ababa is also rumoured to be courting Eritrea Assurances by Maersk and Express Shipping
Port. and Logistics Agency will go some way to reas-
Perhaps with this in mind, Kenya’s Treasury suring Kenyan authorities, however, and with
last week said that shippers docking at Lamu transhipment at Mombasa accounting for just
would be offered “incentives relating to fees 210,000 TEU in 2019 of a total container port
and charges for using and clearing goods at traffic figure of 1.425mn TEU, the remainder of
the port as requested by stakeholders, [which] the LAPSSET corridor may need to catch up to
will be gazetted for at least a period of one year”. avoid losing out to the new kids on the block. ™

PIPELINES & TRANSPORT
Niger and Benin to launch pipeline works

NIGER/BENIN THE Beninese government and West African CNPC’s China Petroleum Technology &
Oil Pipeline Benin Co. (Wapco Benin) will hold Development Co. subsidiary is handling pro-
a ceremony this week to officially launch con- curement for the project and 13,000 pipeline
struction on the Niger-Benin Export Pipeline. segments were shipped from the port of Tianjin
Head of State Patrice Talon will visit the site to Benin in January 2020, with these arriving in
of the terminal station at Sèmè-Kpodji, south of Cotonou a month later.
Cotonou. Meanwhile, Australian engineering firm
Engineering work for the 1,980-km pipe- Worley has carried out design work for a 15-km,
line has already been carried out by firms 28-inch (711-mm) offshore pipeline that will
linked to backer China National Petroleum link to a single-point mooring (SPM) for tanker
Corp. (CNPC), with the Chinese company and loading.
partner Wapco Benin kicking off the initial According to Minister of Mines Samou
construction phase in late 2019. The conduit Seïdou Adambi, Niger and CNPC’s first choice
will run 1,295 km through Niger and 685 km of pipeline route was via Chad but “Talon took
through Beninese territory, linking Agadem to the lead and we went in search of this project”.
the port of Seme. An agreement on the construction of the
It will have a throughput capacity of around pipeline was recently signed in Beijing with
90,000 barrels per day (bpd) and commercial CNPC subsidiary China National Oil and Gas
operations are anticipated in early 2022. Exploration and Development Co. (CNODC).

Week 20 19•May•2021 www. NEWSBASE .com P7