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SHIPPING LINES HAPPY WITH THE NEW KOT TERMINAL

Some representatives of Shipping Lines today 24th January 2022, toured the New Kipevu Oil Terminal(KOT) with a view to inspect its capacity as they plan for increased business. The KOT was officially inspected by the President E.H. Uhuru Kenyatta on 6th of January 2022 . The President noted the importance of the terminal saying it will save Kenya a whooping KSH 2billion per year in demurrage.

The shipping line representatives were happy to see the project which is 97 % complete and is expected to be ready for testing and commissioning by end of March 2022.

The new KOT is an off-shore facility located at the Port of Mombasa, opposite the existing Kipevu Oil Terminal. The project consists of one offshore island terminal with four berths whose total length is 770m and one work boat wharf at Westmont area for landing facilities.

It also has five sub-sea pipelines which were buried 26meters under the seabed to allow for future dredging of the channel without interfering with the pipes.

There are risers each dedicated to a separate oil product and six onshore pipelines each dedicated to a separate oil product connecting the terminal to the Kenya Petroleum Refineries Limited (KPRL) and Kenya Pipeline Company (KPC) storage tanks.

Once complete the new oil terminal facility will have four berths (One not fully equipped) capable of handling six different hydrocarbon import and export products; it is also fitted with a Liquified Petroleum Gas (LPG) facility, crude oil and heavy fuel oil. It also has provisions for handling three types of white oil products (DPK – aviation fuel, AGO – diesel and PMS – petrol).

The Terminal will for a start be able to accommodate three ships concurrently with a capacity of 200,000 tons each. A fourth berth has already been constructed provisionally, which will be fitted with facilities in future commensurate with demand, to be able to handle a fourth ship.