Oil and gas supply base back on track

The Universal Africa Lines (UAL) oil and gas supply centre at Saldanha Bay – an investment of hundreds of millions – is back on track, according to UAL commercial shipping manager, Annalize Krause. This project was put on hold after Transnet National Ports Authority (TNPA) failed to live up to the conditions laid down in the original contract with UAL – the preferred bidder for two sections of land on either side of a berthing quay under a 15-year lease – and negotiations with the Transnet subsidiary had become bogged down in red tape. But, Krause told FTW, after company CE Roger Jungblut wrote a letter to the TNPA CE Tau Morwe indicating that it would withdraw from the project, TNPA had scrambled to repair its damaged relationship with the Dutch-based shipping company. UAL then had what she described as “a positive meeting” with TNPA representatives, and she indicated that UAL had now returned to its original plan to develop the oil and gas supply base. If the negotiations had failed, the project would have returned to the tender stage – a process that would have added at least two years to the time schedule, and would have forced UAL to look for another alternative base for servicing the African oil and gas industries. “But we now have a team working on the project,” Krause added, “and options are being considered and discussed to ensure that we fit in with the regulations laid down by TNPA.” The role that the new oil and gas base will provide is an extensive area for major suppliers to use as a stockholding service centre – strategically placed in reasonable proximity to the African region’s oil industry, mainly in West Africa. UAL intends to transform a section of the Saldanha Bay harbour and emerging industrial development zone (IDZ) into an oil and gas servicing hub.