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President Uhuru Kenyatta is scheduled to inspect the progress of ongoing construction at the new Kipevu Oil Terminal (KOT) on 6th January, 2022. The President will be accompanied by H.E Wang Yi, the State Councilor and Minister of Foreign Affairs for the People’s Republic of China.

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

The Terminal also has 5 sub-sea pipelines which were buried 26 meters under the seabed to allow for future dredging of the channel without interfering with the pipes. The project, valued at Ksh. 40 billion, is financed by the Kenya Ports Authority (KPA) and constructed by China Communication Construction Company (CCCC).

There are risers dedicated to a separate oil product connecting the terminal to the Kenya Petroleum Refineries Limited (KPRL) and Kenya Pipeline Company (KPC) storage tanks. Once completed the new oil terminal facility will have 4 berths capable of handling 6 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 aviation fuel, diesel and 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.

This new Oil Terminal will have various benefits to the economies of the region. Key among them include the following.

  • Reduced vessel turn-around time from 4 days to 2 days.
  • Guaranteed security of supply for the region.
  • Expected significant reduction in demurrage costs.
  • Expected reduced freight costs owing to improved cargo handling capacities and leverages associated with larger economics of scale.
  • Enhanced vessel operational flexibility through the increased vessel handling capacity.
  • Enhanced LPG importation facilities which will lead to possible reduction of LPG costs and more LPG uptake in the Country .
  • Improved fuel handling in cases of quality challenges .
  • The customers will benefit from economies of scale as bigger vessels call the port with reduced freight.