Moz-SA pipeline owner still targets 2010 as completion date despite delays
Thématique :
mozambique,
sud afrique
Despite delays to the start of construction, privately owned Petroline was still hoping to deliver its crucial petroleum products pipeline from Maputo to Nelspruit around the time of the FIFA 2010 World Cup, MD Johan de Vos told Engineering News Online at the weekend.
By this time, a recent report showed that there would be one 40 000 l petrol truck leaving South Africa's ports for inland areas every 5,2 minutes, owing to the shortage of piping infrastructure.
The company was still working to secure environmental approval, with which it had made "very good progress", and was putting in effort to prepare for a swift start to construction once it had final the authorisations.
"We are still optimistic that we will be there in the first half of 2010," De Vos stated by phone of the R4,2-billion project that would be the first privately-owned petroleum pipeline to be built in South Africa since the 1960s.
He had previously hoped for construction to start by winter this year, but said that the company had "been working very hard behind the scenes" to ensure that the it could put the project out to tender soon after final approvals.
"We have also been doing a lot of work on [securing] long-lead items," De Vos added.
The commissioning of the pipeline was seen as crucial to South Africa's inland fuel supplies in 2010, which was the year that experts predicted a fuel shortage could sweep through Gauteng, owing to a lack of transport capacity.
A report that Petroline compiled a couple of months ago stated that the current petroleum products pipeline from Durban to Gauteng was operating at its capacity of some three-billion litres a year, with an additional one- to two-billion litres of fuel transported via road or rail in 2007.
And, the amount of petrol sent by road or rail was set to rise to four-billion litres by 2010, or 33% more than by the current pipe's capacity.
"In the third quarter of 2009 we are expecting that South Africa won't be able to supply our inland [fuel] needs unless something drastic is done," Reuters quoted Department of Minerals and Energy (DME) deputy director-general of hydrocarbons and energy planning Nhlanhla Gumede as saying last month.
Meanwhile, State-owned Transnet was also still hoping to open the tap on its new petroleum products pipeline from Durban to Gauteng in September 2010.
CEO Maria Ramos earlier this year acknowledged that mitigation strategies would have to be implemented before that time.
Transnet Pipelines had been working with the liquid-fuels industry, as well as the DME and Energy, on a "range of mitigating strategies" for the interim period while the pipelines are being built.
One of these remedies included the introduction of drag-reducing agents to improve the efficiency of the existing pipeline network, which was already operating at full capacity. Also being interrogated were rail-based transportation solutions, including the purchase of specialised wagons to move fuel inland.
By this time, a recent report showed that there would be one 40 000 l petrol truck leaving South Africa's ports for inland areas every 5,2 minutes, owing to the shortage of piping infrastructure.
The company was still working to secure environmental approval, with which it had made "very good progress", and was putting in effort to prepare for a swift start to construction once it had final the authorisations.
"We are still optimistic that we will be there in the first half of 2010," De Vos stated by phone of the R4,2-billion project that would be the first privately-owned petroleum pipeline to be built in South Africa since the 1960s.
He had previously hoped for construction to start by winter this year, but said that the company had "been working very hard behind the scenes" to ensure that the it could put the project out to tender soon after final approvals.
"We have also been doing a lot of work on [securing] long-lead items," De Vos added.
The commissioning of the pipeline was seen as crucial to South Africa's inland fuel supplies in 2010, which was the year that experts predicted a fuel shortage could sweep through Gauteng, owing to a lack of transport capacity.
A report that Petroline compiled a couple of months ago stated that the current petroleum products pipeline from Durban to Gauteng was operating at its capacity of some three-billion litres a year, with an additional one- to two-billion litres of fuel transported via road or rail in 2007.
And, the amount of petrol sent by road or rail was set to rise to four-billion litres by 2010, or 33% more than by the current pipe's capacity.
"In the third quarter of 2009 we are expecting that South Africa won't be able to supply our inland [fuel] needs unless something drastic is done," Reuters quoted Department of Minerals and Energy (DME) deputy director-general of hydrocarbons and energy planning Nhlanhla Gumede as saying last month.
Meanwhile, State-owned Transnet was also still hoping to open the tap on its new petroleum products pipeline from Durban to Gauteng in September 2010.
CEO Maria Ramos earlier this year acknowledged that mitigation strategies would have to be implemented before that time.
Transnet Pipelines had been working with the liquid-fuels industry, as well as the DME and Energy, on a "range of mitigating strategies" for the interim period while the pipelines are being built.
One of these remedies included the introduction of drag-reducing agents to improve the efficiency of the existing pipeline network, which was already operating at full capacity. Also being interrogated were rail-based transportation solutions, including the purchase of specialised wagons to move fuel inland.
