Avedia Energy: LPG Tanks Arrived at Saldanha Port, South Africa
Western Cape industrial and domestic users of liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) can sigh in relief at the arrival of the tanks intended for the province’s first permanent LPG storage facilities this week, a giant step towards securing a permanent availability of LPG to the region.
Cape Town-based oil and gas company, Avedia Energy, took ownership of the first set of new LPG storage tanks that arrived at the Saldanha port after a six-week journey from the manufacturing plant in China.
With the first phase being 4 000MT, the first of these tanks have already been discharged and are stored at the Port of Saldanha. Once the LPG storage facility is commissioned by December 2013, the product will be distributed to large LPG users and bottling plants throughout the Western Cape and beyond.
Avedia has already secured the annual import of 100 000MT LPG from the Bonny River Terminal in Nigeria, with the first shipment of product programmed to arrive in the first quarter of 2014.
Earlier in March this year Avedia announced its plans to invest heavily in LPG infrastructure in South Africa at an overall investment of R300-million over the next three years. This includes the development of the storage and handling facility at Saldanha Bay and is designed to accept LPG through the port facilities and via road tanker.
This will be the first significant dedicated LPG import facility on a 4300 kilometre shoreline, stretching from Luanda in Angola to Richards Bay on the KwaZulu Natal coast. The envisaged facility will provide an overall storage capacity of 8 000MT in its final phase, which will boost the existing import LPG storage capacity in South Africa by at least 80%. This import facility would be the largest LPG import facility in South Africa.
The Western Cape counts as the second largest consumer of LPG in South Africa. Of the annual 380 000MT LPG consumption in South Africa, some 120 000MT of LPG is being utilised by Western Cape users, with the bulk of industrial LPG users located in a 5km radius of the Saldanha port.
Source: Liquefied Petroleum Gas Safety Association
Written by LPG Safety Association
