Page 10 - DMEA Week 31

DMEA teRminals & shipping DMEA
Kenya completes first berth at Lamu Port
afRiCa
THE Lamu Port South Sudan Ethiopia Transport (LAPSSET) Corridor Development Authority (LCDA) has announced the completion of the rst of the port’s 22 planned berths. Making the statement via its Facebook page, the LCDA said that dredging had begun in December 2016 and that the second and third berths would be com- pleted by December 2020.
Downstream MEA (DMEA) understands that the budget for the rst three berths was $480mn, while the full development is anticipated costing KES2tn ($19.35bn), with the remaining 29 to be built by private sector. Once complete, Lamu is set to be the largest deep sea port in East Africa, o ering the region’s highest rates of tranship- ment. e berths will each have a 400 metres quay and a depth of 17.5-18 metres, with the 22 covering 6 km of coastline.
e broader infrastructure project comprises a re ned fuel pipeline, a crude oil pipeline, a sea port, roads, airports, a railway and resort cities.
The development at the port follows the announcement in late July that Kenya’s National Lands Commission (NLC) had begun survey- ing the route of the Lokichar-Lamu pipeline fol- lowing the completion of front-end engineering design (FEED) on the project.
e $2bn Lokichar to Lamu crude oil pipe- line is designed to heat and transport waxy crude from oil elds in the South Lokichar basin in the north-west of the country to the port of Lamu on the Indian Ocean for export. uK-based Wood was awarded the FEED contract in May 2018.
First oil is expected to flow through the Lokichar-Lamu conduit by 2021/2022 at 60,000- 80,000 barrels per day, while Kenya and Ethiopia have signed agreement for development of a fuel line from Lamu to Addis Ababa. ere had been talk of building an oil re nery either at Isiolo in the centre of the country or at Lamu. In January, LCDA said that a 125,000 bpd facility would cost $2.8bn, however, authorities have since ruled out building a new re nery on the grounds that such project would be uneconomic at a capacity of less than 400,000 bpd. At any rate, the gures quotes appear ambitious, with the 60,000 bpd facility being built at Hoima in uganda anticipated to cost around $4bn. Kenya has already su ered a signi cant re ning setback in recent years, with the the former 35,000 bpd Kenya Petroleum Re neries Ltd (KPRL) facility at Changamwe closing in late 2013. e closure followed the withdrawal of foreign partner Essar Oil of India, having deemed a promised upgrade and expan- sion project uneconomic. is followed heavily indebted KPRL being unable to nance further crude oil purchases.
Nairobi opted to convert the site into a storage facility and allowed Kenya Pipeline Co. (KPC) to lease the assets for a three-year term, scheduled to expire in March 2020. KPC operates existing fuel tanks with capacity of 320mn litres at the port of Mombasa. KPRL’s facilities comprise 45 tanks with total capacity of 484mn litres, includ- ing 254mn litres for re ned products and 233mn litres (1.47mn barrels) for crude oil.™
Tajikistan eyes Chabahar for deep sea access
middle east
TAJIKISTAN’S ambassador to Iran, Nizamud- din Zahedi, has called for access to Iran’s open water porters in a meeting with Iran’s trans- port minister, Mehr News Agency reported on August 7. Tajikistan – a double landlocked country – has no access to the sea and no nav- igable inland waterways. Connecting via Iran’s deep seaport of Chabahar would open access to marine imports via use of the free trade zone.
Iran’s Transport Minister Mohammad Eslami said Iran is open to negotiations to make its waterways accessible to the Tajiks via the long-delayed Iran-Afghanistan-Tajikistan rail- way which connects to the port of Chabahar.
e discussions between the two sides come following a trip to Tajikistan by Iranian President Hassan Rouhani in June where he met with his counterpart Emamoli Rahmon.
e Tehran meeting also follows that of the agreed on nancing and completing the Istiklol Tunnel near Dushanbe. e tunnel is part of an Ahmadinejad-era highway vision, which would
stretch from the port of Chabahar, through Afghanistan, passing Dushanbe and heading into Chinese controlled East-Turkestan.
e route was originally nanced jointly by the Iranian and Tajiki governments in 2014, but funds dried up in 2015 a er the tunnel was only half built. Iran has invested more than $60mn in the construction of the tunnel and has carried out much of the engineering work.
Like other CIS countries, Tehran appears to be attempting to mend ties with their estranged Persian cousin country. Despite warm relations during the Ahmadinejad-era, with billion-dollar investments from now-jailed babak Zanjani in transport, banking and infrastructure compa- nies, recent years have been tougher on the only two Persian-speaking nations in Asia.
Relations soured when Iran hosted an Islamic conference and invited representatives from Tajikistan that included including the exiled leader of the Islamic Renaissance Party of Tajik- istan, Muhiddin Kabiri.™
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w w w . N E W S B A S E . c o m Week 31 08•August•2019