Local News

More oil for storage as Tiper expands

A PETROLEUM storage firm, Tanzania International Petroleum Reserves Limited (Tiper), formerly known as Tanzania Italian Petroleum Refinery, plans to invest US $16 million (approximately 25.6bn/-) to double its storage capacity in five years to come.

Its Managing Director, Mr Daniel Belair, said in a press statement over the weekend that the investment would see the facility double its capacity to 300,000 cubic metres from its current operational capacity of 147,000 cubic metres.

"At present, with 147,000 cubic metres, the firm has the largest storage capacity in Tanzania and this will be increased to 300,000 by 2015," Mr Belair said.  The investment comes in addition to a massive rehabilitation that started several years ago at a cost US $14 million (about 22.4bn/-).

Mr Belair said that despite the huge investments made so far, the company has been able to continuously pay dividends totalling 10bn/- to its two shareholders. The petroleum storage firm is jointly owned by the government of Tanzania and Oryx Oil and Gas (OOG), a Swiss company, each with a 50 per cent stake.

"TIPER is open to all oil companies, national and international, that want to store petroleum products. Our tariffs are public and regularly reviewed by the Board of Directors," Mr Belair said in the statement.

The company has a 40-strong workforce and 40 contractors. The development plan of the company will undoubtedly create more employment opportunities for Tanzanians, according to the Tiper boss.

Despite the company offering storage facilities for oil marketing companies (OMCs) to store their petroleum products, he said a government institution had also shown keen interest in storing the National Strategic Petroleum Reserves at Tiper.

The facility is used for storage of petroleum products including diesel, gasoline (petrol) as well as kerosene and heavy furnace oil (HFO). The MD said his company strongly welcomes the idea of licensing petroleum activity and more specifically to all petroleum terminals, saying it would ensure greater petroleum products' integrity in the market.

"Like any normal company, Tiper is periodically audited by a reputable international auditing firm. In addition, the Energy and Water Utilities Regulatory Authority (EWURA) has recently examined TIPER to monitor the petroleum business in Tanzania for the period spanning 2009 to 2011.

"However, in any audit, the procedure requires the auditor to discuss the main findings with the managers of the entity which is audited so that additional information can be provided if necessary. No written final audit report has been provided to us so far," he said.

He added: "We assume that if any element of importance had been detected, it would have been communicated so that appropriate corrective measures could have been taken, but nothing has come back to us."