The Sunday Mail
Ray Bande in Mutare
THE expansion of the Feruka pipeline from a throughput of 6 million litres to over 8 million litres per day is part of a long-term plan to turn the country into a regional hub for storage and distribution of petroleum products, a Cabinet minister has said.
This initial phase of the expansion is expected to end in the first quarter of next year. In an interview during a tour of Feruka’s premises in Mutare last week, Energy and Power Development Minister Edgar Moyo said: “There are prospects of an upgrade of the pipeline so that, as Zimbabwe, we become a hub in the Southern African region in terms of storage and distribution of petroleum products.
“The expansion is a very important project in terms of our strategic positioning as a hub for fuel in the country. We are looking at dominating this market and we have no apologies about it.
“We know it will facilitate our economic growth. We know it will make Zimbabwe a special link in the distribution of petroleum products.”
Minister Moyo commended the National Oil Infrastructure Company for prioritising the project.
“I want to commend our officials from the parastatal for a job well done. Everything that I saw is very good, and flowing seamlessly.”
He said although Zimbabwe is a landlocked country, it still remains a strategic hub for fuel storage and distribution in the region.
“While we are inland and we do not have a sea to our side, we think that positioning as an inland country is strategic in terms of distribution, so we are happy with the upgrade. We are happy with more volumes coming into the country for further distribution.”
Manicaland Minister of State for Provincial Affairs and Devolution Advocate Misheck Mugadza said expansion of the project is going to provide employment opportunities and other downstream benefits for locals.
“The pipeline is something that we have always cherished because it has reduced problems with regard to congestion on our roads, whereby we would be having trucks carrying the commodity. So, we thank the Governments of Zimbabwe and Mozambique for the initiative. We look forward to the upgrading of this pipeline project,” he said.
Mr Peter Masvikeni, managing director of Petrozim Line, the company that runs the pipeline from Mutare to Msasa, said the project will undergo further upgrade, in addition to the ongoing expansion.
“We are currently pushing a volume throughput of six million litres a day of either diesel or petrol and we are basically on an expansion project, where we are going to push the capacity to 8,3 million litres a day or three billion litres per annum. About 90 percent of equipment for the capacity upgrade is already in place.”
“We are waiting for the rest to come through and the project will be concluded by the first quarter of next year. Certainly, we will have further expansion of the project thereafter. When we complete the first phase, we are going to review the demand of the product and from there, we are going to the next phase, which will move the capacity from Stage One of three billion litres to Stage Two, which will be five billion litres per year.”
