Erongo Petroleum CC (EPC) plans to develop a bulk liquid fuel storage facility with a design capacity to store and handle 24 million litres of fuel in Namibia’s bustling industrial town of Walvis Bay.
An investment of around N$250 million is projected for the development of the facility, with no plans for decommissioning in the near to medium future.
The Ministry of Environment, Tourism and Forestry recently approved the application for the project’s Environmental Clearance Certificate (ECC) to permit the construction and operation of the bulk liquid fuelstorage and handling facility.
According to the scoping assessment to support the application the facility is anticipated to remain operational for over 30 years.
EPC had appointed Ekwao Consulting (Ekwao) to attend to its authorisation process for the ECC.
“The proposed facility has a designed capacity of 24,000 m3 of automobile diesel oil (ADO) only, stored in six aboveground storage tanks. Erf 5022 measures about 30 250 m2 and is fully developed, accommodating a fishing factory which has been in operation for 50 years,” said the report.
The facility is set to function as a one-stop fuel service station for fishing vessels operating from the Walvis Bay harbour.
“Instead of road tankers making multiple trips into fishing factories delivering fuel required by fishing vessels, fishing vessels will simply dock at a ‘fuel service station’ operated from a jetty terminal in the same way that cars in a town pull up at a filling station,” the report noted.
At the proposed one-stop fuel service station, fishing vessels will be refueled and replenished with potable water and fresh supply for the crew.
This comes as there are over 200 commercial fishing vessels catching fish in Namibia waters that dock at various jetty terminals in the harbour.
