January 10, 2013 [The Malaysian Insider] - The world's largest oil trader Vitol and Malaysian state-run shipper MISC plan to almost double by the middle of next year the capacity of their Johor terminal, the biggest oil storage in Malaysia, the companies said on Thursday.
The Tanjung Bin storage terminal started operations in April last year with 41 tanks that have a total capacity of 890,000 cubic metres. Vitol and MISC said they planned to add additional tanks with a total capacity of 800,000 cubic metres by mid-2014 with the intention of leasing them.
The terminal stores crude and oil products such as butane, light and middle distillates as well as fuel oil.
Malaysia is fast expanding its oil storage capacity through investments from independent traders Vitol and Trafigura. It has also offered tax incentives to draw more trading firms to set up shop in the state of Johor as neighbouring Singapore, Asia’s oil hub, runs out of storage space.
The terminal was approved by energy pricing agency Platts in October to participate in its assessment process for oil products, a move that was seen as allowing Geneva-based Vitol to take bigger trading positions and gain greater flexibility.
It received 360 ships in 2012 with a throughput of 38 million barrels of oil products.
Vitol Tank Terminals International (VTTI), jointly owned by the world’s largest oil trader Vitol and MISC, owns and operates a network of oil products terminals with a gross combined capacity of nearly 8.5 million cubic metres globally.
The company is also looking at doubling its oil storage capacity at the port of Fujairah, just outside the Strait of Hormuz, and could start construction by early 2014.
