September 23, 2013 [Press Release: SOCAR AURORA] - SOCAR AURORA Fujairah Terminal FZC (SAFT), the joint venture company between SOCAR, the State Oil Company of Azerbaijan Republic, AURORA Progress, the Swiss based commodity trading house, and the Government of Fujairah today announced the completion of the second phase of the 815,000 cubic metre oil products terminal in Fujairah.
This phase has added 235,000 cubic metres to the tanks already in operation and has been partly funded with $61 million from APICORP and National Bank of Fujairah.
Ammar Kutait, CEO of SAFT commented “We are delighted to have been able to complete this second phase four weeks ahead of schedule and well within budget.
The construction teams from Fujairah National Construction & Transportation for all the civil works, Belleli Energy for tanks and pipelines, Consilium Middle East for the electrical, instrumentation and fire fighting equipment together with our project manager MUC Oil & Gas and the SAFT team have all played their part in a successful delivery of these 11 tanks.
We have adopted the latest technology in the construction including having a revolutionary sealing system in place on the domed and internal floating roofs that will minimise the loss of product.”
SOCAR Trading, Vice-President and CFO, Emil Bayramli said: “The terminal has operated very smoothly since it first opened in March 2012. This expansion will provide customers with additional services such as a road loading facility for supply into the local market.
As SOCAR Trading we are looking forward to being able to expand the range of products we ourselves store at the terminal. The SOCAR AURORA terminal benefits from a highly flexible pipeline manifold that allows each tank to hold a different product, if required. We have tanks coated so that they can hold aviation jet fuel and ethanol.
We set out to make this a thoroughly flexible terminal that can cater to the changing needs of our customers. We are also fortunate to be able to utilise the new, highly efficient oil berth facilities provided by the Port of Fujairah.”
“The Port is making further investments as well in additional berths that will shortly allow us to accommodate vessels of up to 200,000 tonnes”, added Ammar Kutait, “and with SAFT having some of the highest pumping rates in Fujairah we expect to be handling these larger ships in the future.
“Having completed the first two phases we are focussing our attention now to the construction of the third phase and we are pleased that APICORP and National Bank of Fujairah will be supporting us again in this next phase providing in total $110 million of funding”.
