27 February 2008
Maputo — Work on a fuel pipeline from the port of Maputo to South Africa should begin in June, since the environmental impact study on the project did not identify any bio-physical or socio-economic impact of the pipeline sufficiently serious to warrant cancellation of the project.
The project is budgeted at 537 million US dollars, and involves building a pipeline that will carry refined fuels from the Matola oil terminal to the South African city of Kendal.
Jose Jeronimo, a consultant for the Mozambican environmental company Impacto, told AIM that, from the environmental point of view, "there is nothing to prevent this project from going ahead".
As with any large scale project, he added, there will be impacts, some negative and some positive. Jeronimo said the main impacts would be bio-physical, concerning the vegetation that will have to be removed along the route of the pipeline, and soil erosion, notably where the pipeline crosses rivers.
The pipeline will be able to carry five million cubic metres of liquid fuel a year, and will greatly boost Mozambican exports to South Africa. It will increase the use of Maputo Port, and will reduce the number of petrol tankers on the roads. It will run for 64 kilometres from Matola to the border, at Ressano Garcia, and then 384 kilometres to Kendal, via Nelspruit (where a storage depot will be built).
Currently tanker trucks do carry some fuel from Maputo to South Africa. But a pipeline would be much more cost efficient.
The pipeline operating company is Petroline Holdings registered in South Africa. Because of the different regulatory environment on the two sides of the border, two other companies have also been created - Petroline RSA (Pty) in South Africa and Petroline SARL in Mozambique. These two companies will ensure regulatory compliance. The main Mozambican shareholder in this set-up is the publicly owned fuel company, Petromoc.
There will be five separate environmental impact assessments, two in Mozambique and three in South Africa. The second Mozambican assessment will concern the upgrading of the Matola oil terminal.
This will be the second pipeline from Mozambique to South Africa, The first carries natural gas from Temane, in Inhambane province, to the South African industrial town of Secunda.
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