Jean Jacques Moyson, General Manager – Port, Port of Duqm Company, talks to OGR about the progress made in the development of Port of Duqm and how oil & gas related companies are making the best use of its early operations.

Tell us about the current status of the Port of Duqm.

I think it’s very interesting to see what we are doing right now and relate it to what we will be doing in the short and medium term future. For the time being, we have an early operations terminal where we are handling break bulk, heavy lifts, general cargo, etc. This is over a quay length of 300 meters. Next to it, we have an early operations container terminal with 300 meters quay length; 200 meters wide, completely fenced, ISPS certified where we will handle our first container lines with our mobile harbor cranes equipped with automatic spreaders, reachstackers,  forklifts, etc.

Next to it is the expansion area with a quay length of 1000m and at the end of the terminal, over a length of 600m, are the early operations dry bulk terminal and a terminal dedicated to the navies. That sums up the present situation.

In the short term, we will have the investment in IP2, which means the full construction of the commercial berth. When the contractors will have finished their construction works, PDC will have 300 meters for breakbulk, two times 800 meters for 2 container terminals or one terminal of 1.6 km and a dry bulk terminal of 300m.

When talking about short or medium term, I can tell you that the construction works will start in the beginning of 2016 and we are expecting to finalise everything by the end of 2018 or the beginning of 2019. From then on, we will be able to work on a fully-fledged container terminal and obviously in between now and the finalisation of the construction, we will also move from our present operational area to the area that will by then have already been constructed so that our operations are not faced with any kind of standstill.

We are also investing in two pilot boats, the first one will be delivered to us in the first quarter of 2016 and the second one in the second quarter of the same year. This is regarding the port site as such.

As for the logistical land, we finished the levelling of the first 65 hectares. PDC is already finalizing the negotiations with some clients. The first part of the industrial land will also be levelled soon.

Besides the industrial land, I would also like to mention the investments that will be performed for the liquid bulk terminal for DPTC (Duqm Petroleum Terminal Company), which is linked to the Duqm Refinery that is going to be built. We are in the process of negotiating a usufruct agreement with DPTC in order to agree upon the infrastructure that will be offered to them. Thereafter, the construction of the super structure will be performed by DPTC.

We are expecting the construction works to start mid next year in order to finish it by approximately H2 of 2017. The construction works of the super structure will consequently be started by DPTC and we hope DPTC to be operational by 2019 simultaneously with the start of Duqm Refinery. So the Port of Duqm will by then offer break bulk, dry bulk, container, navy and liquid bulk activities.

Can you tell us about how you are serving the oil & gas sector?

When talking about the location of the Port of Duqm versus the hinterland, we are definitely looking at oil and gas and minerals. When talking about the cooperation between the gas industry and us, I would like to mention two very good examples. Everybody knows about the projects of Petroleum Development Oman’s (PDO) Harweel and BP Khazzan and I can tell you that we are discharging lots of equipment like gas tubes, project cargo and heavy lifts for both the companies. The cargo in the vessels calling Duqm directly are being discharged in our port in order to be transported to the final destination. The transportation to the final destination is rather easy going as we have a relatively flat hinterland. That’s it on the gas side.

As far as the cooperation with the oil industry is concerned, we are setting it up right now with DPTC and indirectly with Duqm Refinery. A lot of added value based upon our location and our service level will be linked with DPTC’s best practices in the world in order to back an investment being able to deal with a volume of 230,000 barrels per day.

Besides this, there are also a number of sea drilling projects going on in the vicinity of Duqm. We are working very closely with a number of companies in this area in order to give them all possible logistical support, be it the discharging/loading  of trucks, temporary storage and reloading/discharging on to and from the boats going to the offshore sites.