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Mozambique: New Beira Fuel Terminal Inaugurated
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Agencia de Informacao de Mocambique (Maputo)
22 December 2007
Posted to the web 24 December 2007
Beira
Mozambican and Zimbabwean Presidents Armando Guebuza and Robert Mugabe on Friday inaugurated a new fuel terminal in the central Mozambican port of Beira.
According to the Chief Executive Office of the Mozambican fuel company Petromoc, Casimiro Francisco, the terminal has nine fuel tanks with the capacity to store 95,000 cubic metres of assorted liquid fuels.
He said the terminal is endowed with sophisticated operating control and safety systems, giving it a high degree of efficiency and security. Construction of the terminal cost 25 million US dollars and took 18 months.
The increased capacity to store fuel, not only for central Mozambique, but for the landlocked economies of Zimbabwe, Zambia and Malawi would lead to more tankers calling at Beira, said Francisco.
The two presidents also signed an agreement to launch the Beira Development Corridor. The corridor consists of the port and the road and rail system from Beira to Zimbabwe. The Corridor should also include the Sena railway from Beira to Malawi, but this has not yet been fully rebuilt, after suffering near total destruction at the hands of the apartheid-backed Renamo rebels during the war of destabilisation.
Beira port was built under the Portuguese colonial regime to serve what was then the British colony of southern Rhodesia. Its main user today ought to be Zimbabwe, but that country's economic crisis has reduced its use of the Beira port and rail system to a trickle. Beira can also be used by Zambia, Malawi, Botswana and even parts of the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Speaking at the signing ceremony, Guebuza said that making the Beira Development Corridor viable would depend on greater use of the port, rail and road infrastructures, which would be increasingly important given that SADC (Southern African Development Community) are due to inaugurate their free trade area in a matter of weeks.
The transport corridors, he added, "should be seen as opportunities for developing other social and economic activities". A range of investment opportunities in agriculture, mining, tourism and energy have been identified in regions covered by the Beira Corridor.
Guebuza regarded the new fuel terminal as giving great stimulus to regional economic integration. "From Beira, the supply of fuel to the region is guaranteed, both through the Corridor and through the pipeline", he said. (This pipeline, owned by the Mozambique-Zimbabwe Pipeline Company, carries fuel from Beira to the eastern Zimbabwean city of Mutare).
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The new fuel storage capacity in Beira, Guebuza added, reduces the SADC deficit in fuel infrastructures, at a time when demand for fuel is growing in the region.
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| Copyright © 2007 Agencia de Informacao de Mocambique. All rights reserved. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com). To contact the copyright holder directly for corrections -- or for permission to republish or make other authorized use of this material, click here. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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