Burgan Cape Terminals’ development and construction of an independently owned and operated liquid fuels storage and distribution facility in the Port of Cape Town has been deemed a strategic Operation Phakisa project.

Operation Phakisa, officially launched in October last year, was South Africa’s first large-scale move to tap into the multibillion-rand economic potential of the country’s coastline.

The initiative determined four critical areas of focus, namely marine transport and manufacturing, offshore oil and gas exploration, aquaculture and marine protection services and ocean governance.

Operation Phakisa expected to increase the ocean economy’s gross domestic product contribution by more than R20-billion by 2019.

Burgan CEO Muziwandile Mseleku said he was “enormously encouraged” that government viewed Burgan Cape Terminals’ planned fuel storage and distribution facilities to address the ongoing fuel shortages in the Western Cape as a strategic project under Operation Phakisa.

Burgan Cape Terminals – a partnership between Thebe Investment Corporation, broad-based black economic-empowerment company Jicaro and international terminal operator VTTI – would invest R650-million during the first two years of the development.

The project was intended to meet the challenges of security of fuel supply and associated flexibility in the Western Cape, and met the country’s need to increase fuel infrastructure and capacity, while positively impacting the economy, facilitating global skills transfer and transforming the local energy sector.

“The Burgan facility will address South Africa’s growing need for greater security of supply that will result from expanded strategic stock storage and emergency import capacity, possibly addressing the greater use of Eskom's Western Cape Ankerlig open-cycle gas turbine power station,” Mseleku commented.

Further, embattled State-owned power utility Eskom had expressed interest in using Burgan’s storage assets to ensure the utility had back-up fuel when required and discussions regarding this were ongoing.

Construction of the fuel storage terminal would start once the Western Cape Department of Environment and Development Planning approved Burgan’s environmental licence.