East African Business Week

 DAR ES SALAAM, TANZANIA - The Tanzania Ports Authority (TPA) has secured a loan of $60 million from the CRDB Bank to upgrade the Kurasini Oil Jetty (KOJ) offloading capacity at the Dar Port, as the first cargo of 'Bulk Procurement System' (SPM) of petroleum products is expected late December this year or early January 2012.
 According to the Dar es Salaam Port Manager, Mr Cassian Ngamilo, KOJ capacity is presently being upgraded to handle the anticipated oil imports through procumbent system as the Authority makes improvement on the Single Point Mooring.
Speaking in Dar es Salaam last week, during a stakeholders' meeting organized by the Energy and Water Utilities Regulatory Authority (EWURA), to review the petroleum pricing formula in line with the bulk procurement system (BPS), he said: "We have already secured a loan worth $60 million from CRDB Bank to implement the project and $25 million will be raised through our own sources, "he noted.
 In total the construction of SPM and upgrading of KOJ will cost up to US $100 million (about 170b).
 Ngamilo was optimistic that when the SPM becomes a reality it will reduce and get away with demurrage costs since dwell time at the port will considerably reduced.
Stakeholders in the oil industry told the Tanzania Government that unless it takes stringent measures to improve the current Kurasini Oil Jetty offloading capacity at the Dar Port, the bulk procurement system of oil will remain a mystery. The current offloading capacity of KOJ stands at 45,000 metric tones.
The Chairperson of the board of the Petroleum Importation Coordinator (PIC) Limited Board, Mansoor Shanif was recently quoted saying oil importers expected to  bring into the country some 529,000 metric tones of petroleum products worth US$500 million (Tsh850bn).
The Executive Director of the Tanzania Association of Oil Marketing Companies (TAOMAC), who is also the Acting CEO of PIC Ltd, Salum Bisarara, doubted the efficiency of the bulk procurement system will become a reality because of the inadequacy of the KOJ offloading facility.  However, Bisarara said, "We are in the last stages of starting to import bulk oil under the new system." Bisarara advised the Government to build a central storage facility similar to that at Mombasa port.
A Member of Parliament, Charles Mwijage, warned that good and adequate facilities must be in place before the procurement system takes off to avoid hiccups citing pipelines and adequate storage facilities.
He urged Ewura to consider suspending the exercise to allow Dar Port to develop the needed infrastructure. Ewura's Director General Haruna Masebu told stakeholders that the process of implementing the bulk procurement for Tanzania was at an advanced stage.
PIC has already finalized short listing of the suppliers of petroleum products for Tanzania and already issued tenders for importation of products for the first two months. "It is expected that the first cargo which will be imported under the new system will arrive in by the end of 2011," he said.