NOIC in US$20m upgrade of Feruka pipeline 

Source: NOIC in US$20m upgrade of Feruka pipeline – NewsDay Zimbabwe

BY MIRIAM MANGWAYA
THE National Oil Infrastructure Company (NOIC) has partnered Mozambican fuel company Companhia do Pipeline Moçambique  Zimbabwe (CPMZ) in a US$20 million Feruka pipeline upgrade  project to increase  its pumping capacity.

Addressing journalists in the capital yesterday, NOIC chairperson Daniel Mackencie Ncube said the upgrading would see the pipeline pumping up to three billion litres of fuel per year up from its current capacity of 2,19 billion per year.

“In line with the national vision to establish Harare as the regional hub for fuel distribution, PZL, in conjunction with its Mozambican counterpart, CPMZ is upgrading the pumping capacity of the pipeline from an annual volume throughput of 2,19 billion litres to 3 billion litres,”Ncube said.

“The objective is to achieve a capacity of 5 billion litres per annum by 2025.  These volumes translate to daily volumes of six million litres currently and 8,2 and 13,7 million litres after the successive upgrades. The utilisation of future capacity will result in the generation of additional foreign currency.”

PZL executive director Peter Masvikeni said construction works for the upgrading project would run in two phases, and would commence in the third quarter of this year.

“We have now gone into the phase of procurement where to date we have contracted six vendors for the supply of critical equipment and the equipment will basically start arriving during the third and fourth quarters of this year.  We expect construction works to commence during the third quarter which will result in the commissioning by the first quarter of 2023 .The cost of the first phase is US$15 million, and the second phase will require an additional US$5 million,” Masvikeni said.

Last year, PZL pumped 1,19 billion litres of fuel from the Feruka pipeline, which was enough to meet demand.

Fuel dealers said the pipeline would ease fuel queues at Beira port, and hours of waiting at the offloading bays.

Direct Fuel Import Group secretary general Bart Mukucha said: “If the upgrade is completed, it means the pipeline will pump faster. We will not wait for up to 12 hours like we used to do for the fuel to be offloaded at the port.”