The
call for bids comes when government is pushing ahead with the upgrade of the
Kenya Petroleum Refineries to a storage facility in readiness for early crude
oil production in June next year. The upgrade includes installation of heating
elements on oil tanks to store the waxy crude oil from Turkana oil fields.
It
will also include the repair of the railway line that serves the facility since
the crude is expected to be transported from Eldoret by Rift Valley Railways.
Energy ministry officials have said the refinery upgrade will take a minimum of
nine months. However, it is not clear whether the oil terminal will be
completed at the same time with the refinery upgrade.
Kenya
is expected to start producing oil.
Oyaro
said the proposed offloading facility will have both sub-sea and land-based
pipelines connecting it to the storage facilities in Changamwe.
He
said the project consists of an island terminal with four berths located
slightly inlands capable to support five different hydrocarbon products
including crude oil, heavy fuel oil and three types of white oil products.
The
initial plan is for three berths although the layout will accommodate a fourth
berth later should the need arise. The terminal, whose construction could boost
the efficiency of oil-related products transportation, is expected to consist
of a sub-sea pipeline corridor and associated number of pipelines which will
have an element of pre-investment to accommodate the four berths.
Oyaro
said the terminal will also have an on-shore pipeline to a designated tie-in
location. Another feature of the terminal is a Supervisory Control and Data
Acquisition (Scada) system for gathering and analysing real-time data.
Scada
systems are used to monitor and control a plant or equipment in oil and gas
refining and transportation. The system is also able to gather information
including leakages on pipes and transferring the information to a central data
base.