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Ray Bande
Senior Reporter
THE Stage One of the expansion of Feruka pipeline from a throughput of six million litres per year to eight million litres per annum is a development that is expected to open employment opportunities for people in Manicaland, Government ministers have said.
This initial phase of the expansion is expected to end next April.
In an interview during the tour of Feruka in Mutare yesterday (Thursday), Energy and Power Development Minister, Honourable Edgar Moyo, said: “We are here at Feruka before proceeding to Beira to familiarise with the assets of National Oil Infrastructure Company (NOIC). As you know that fuel is a very, very important issue for the country and we are going into the festive season, I wanted to understand what exactly is going on.
“What I have seen here is that work is being done and I want to commend our officials from NOIC for a job well done. Everything that I saw is very good and seamless.
“Now I am proceeding to Beira to see more on the storage, how they are receiving and how they are pumping fuel into the country.
“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.”
In a separate interview, Minister of State for Manicaland Provincial Affairs and Devolution, Advocate Misheck Mugadza, said the expansion project will create more employment opportunities and other downstream benefits to locals.
“The project is running on well. This project will benefit Manicaland in terms of job creation and all that follows downstream.
“The issue of the pipeline expansion is something that we have always cherished because it has reduced problems with regards to congestion on our roads, whereby we would be having trucks carrying the commodity. We want to thank the governments of Mozambique and Zimbabwe for the initiative. We look forward to the upgrading of this pipeline project,” said Minister Mugadza.
Mr Peter Masvikeni, the Managing Director of PetroZim Line, the company that runs the pipeline from Mutare to Msasa, said: “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 will push the capacity to 8,3 million litres a day or three billion litres per annum. Most of the 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 will 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.
“One of major goals is to position Zimbabwe as a regional hub in the distribution of fuel, and once we have put in place the pumping capacity and the subsequent loading capacity which is already in place, we will generate extra revenue by pushing the fuel into regional markets.
“The major outcome there will be extra income generation for the country as well as security of supply of fuel for the nation itself.”
Online Reporter