Denmark's NIRAS to Design New Oil Terminal in Kenya

Denmark's NIRAS has won a government contract to design a replacement oil terminal in the Kenyan port of Mombasa, which will be larger than the current 50-year old terminal and will ease the flow of fuel imports, a government official said.

The Indian Ocean port of Mombasa, the biggest in east Africa and the region's trade gateway, handles fuel and consumer goods imports as well as exports of tea and coffee from landlocked neighbours such as Uganda and South Sudan.

The economies in the east African region have been growing, increasing the demand for new and larger fuel storage and pipeline facilities. The new berth being developed by the Kenya Ports Authority will cater for larger oil vessels.

"The project involves creating a new larger berth to handle delivery by bigger vessels," the Energy and Petroleum Principal Secretary Joseph Njoroge said on Friday.

Kenya and Uganda have discovered oil but East Africa's largest economy presently has no strategic reserves and relies on oil marketers' 21-day reserves required under industry regulations.

NIRAS said in a statement the new terminal will accommodate four large ships, each with a capacity of up to 150,000 deadweight tonnes (DWT). The present terminal has a single berth that can only accommodate one ship at a time, with a top capacity of 100,000 DWT.

The new terminal is part of an expansion of infrastructure by countries in the region, which have also agreed to build a standard gauge railway from Mombasa to Rwanda and also discussed a regional power supply cooperation.

"The port infrastructure in many African ports is often insufficient and deteriorated. Seen in combination with fast growing economies in the continent, this provides an excellent opportunity for a company like NIRAS," Jesper Harder, a senior official at NIRAS, said in a statement.

NIRAS is engaged in consultancy, engineering and design in large infrastructure projects such as ports and harbours. Most of its projects are outside Denmark and it has been expanding in the developing world for several years now.

(Writing by James Macharia; Editing by Elaine Hardcastle)