Construction giant Joannou and Paraskevaides (J&P) has delivered the first phase of a €300 mln fuel storage terminal and docking jetty to its owners, VTT Vasiliko, during a humble ceremony on Friday, with the first tanker ships expected after testing in a few weeks.
The ambitious project, the largest foreign direct investment on the island in the industrial and energy sector, aims to place Cyprus at the centre of the downstream fuel transport routes. It also helped local sub-contractors gain experience in sophisticated energy infrastructure projects, thus now able to compete in other international projects.
An official inauguration ceremony is expected to take place in early 2015.
Efthyvoulos Iacovides, General Manager of J&P, officially handed over the terminal to George Papanastasiou, Managing Director of the owning company VTT Vasiliko Ltd (VTTV). Also present at the ceremony was Efthyvoulos Paraskevaides, chairman of the Paraskevaides Group.
The contractor was the consortium of J&P and J&P (Overseas) Vasiliko Oil Tank. Construction work lasted 32 months, employing more than 800 people in a total 3 mln man-hours.
“This is a state-of-the-art project that is unique to the region and we expect that it will soon transform Cyprus into an oil trading hub,” Papanastasiou said.
Efthyvoulos Iacovides of J&P added that “such a pioneering project for Cyprus required high-level specialisation and expertise. J&P, having an abundance of experience in similarly sophisticated projects around the world, delivers a project that is designed and constructed with the highest quality and technical specifications”.
With the completion of the construction phase, the terminal’s operation system will be tested with oil products, followed by the arrival of the first vessels during the next weeks.
The project, a subsidiary of international oil storage terminal operator VTTI B.V., 50% of which is owned by Dutch Vitol, features 28 tanks with a total storage capacity of 543,000 cubic metres of core fuel (diesel, gasoline and jet fuel) a deep water marine jetty as well as road tanker loading facilities in phase one. The second phase, scheduled to begin in mid 2015 will create an additional 13 tanks and an extra capacity of 305,000 cubic metres to be completed in 2016.
VTTV’s Papanastasiou believes that the facility will be attractive to operators as in the wider area there are oil product flows from the Black Sea to the east, from the east to the west and from Europe to the east Mediterranean and the Red Sea, as 250 trans-shipments per year take place in the open sea around Cyprus.
“The terminal, in conjunction with the island’s strategic location near the Suez Canal, places Cyprus on the map of these fuel transports,” he said in comments earlier in November.
The company, he said, can store crude oil being transported from the Red Sea to Asia’s emerging markets.
Papanastasiou added that the terminal could also act as the storage of Cyprus’ strategic fuel reserves, as well the fuel storage of Cypriot fuel companies, as all fuel depots traditionally located near the now defunct refinery in Larnaca should be relocated by 2016.
He said that despite the global economic downturn, VTTV is expected to conclude contracts by the end of this year that will secure 80% of the terminal’s capacity.
“Our aim is to serve 500 ships a year, a figure that alone corresponds to the Limassol port’s annual commercial activity,” Papanastasiou said.
