Cameroon and PERENCO Group yesterday signed an agreement in Yaounde to that effect.

A new floating crude oil storage and loading terminal will be set up in the Rio Del Rey basin to replace two existing ones which have become too costly for the State to operate. The government of Cameroon represented by the National Hydrocarbons Corporation (NHC) and the newly created Cameroon Oil Terminal S.A (COTSA) company represented by PERENCO Group Subsidiaries in Cameroon yesterday in Yaounde, agreed in a signing ceremony to execute the project.

The event that was presided at by Emmanuel Bonde, Minister of Mines, Industries and Technological Development, witnessed the signing on the government side, by Adolphe Moudiki, Executive General Manager of NHC and on the COTSA side, by Denis Clerc-Renaud, General Manager of PERENCO Group Subsidiaries in Cameroon. According to the terms of the agreement, the two parties will “acquire and operate a single oil storage tanker called “Massongo.” This storage facility is projected to have a storage capacity of 1,870,000 barrels. It will replace the two existing tankers; the “Moudi” which has clocked 41 and the “Kingsway” on rent, the two of which will end technical exploitation in December this year.

The advantage of installing the “Massongo” is enormous. According to the press statement issued at the end of the signing ceremony, it will make it possible to keep the Kole (32 degrees API), a quality of crude oil and the Lokele (20 degrees API) another quality separately. “These two qualities of crude oil are currently produced in the Rio Del rey Basin”, the release stated. The second advantage replacing the “Moudi and the“Kingsway” with “Massongo” is that single installation will help save about FCFA 225 billion over the next fifteen years.

The Cameroon Oil Terminal S.A on whose behalf PERENCO will commission and operate the project was created on June 19, 2012 following the technical and feasibility studies undertaken by NHC and PERENCO leading to its creation. The National Hydrocarbons Corporation possesses 44 per cent of the shares, PERENCO, 51 per cent and TWO SQARE SHIPPING group of ABC Maritime group, five per cent. As an independent service provider, COTSA will offer its services to producing operators in the Rio Del Rey basin and equally to those who may want to use the terminal to store and load their products in future.

The installation of the new tanker, according to the signing parties, constitutes a “strategic project and a far reaching achievement, which consolidates the resumption of investments in the upstream petroleum sector amounting to about FCFA 551 billion in exploration and production for 2012.”