OREANDA-NEWS. March 11, 2011. The supervisory board of the state owned company Port of Tallinn agreed to a proposal from the management board to have 400,000 cubic meters of new tanks for liquid cargoes built for the needs of the oil transit company AS Vopak E.O.S., which would enable to handle up to five million tons of oil products additionally per year.

The chairman of the supervisory board of Port of Tallinn, Neinar Seli, said Vopak E.O.S. has made large scale investments in development in recent years to maintain handling volumes and increase them. "In order to offer a high-quality service to traders and cargo owners, the terminal today needs primarily additional tank capacities for the storage and blending of products and additional quay resource for loading and unloading VLCC tankers," Seli said.

Vopak E.O.S. is the largest independent terminals operator in the Baltic countries and the biggest cargo operator at the ports of Port of Tallinn. AS Vopak E.O.S. belongs to the Royal Vopak group, the global market leader in the independent storage and handling of liquid oil products, chemicals and gases, Port of Tallinn said. In Estonia Vopak E.O.S. operates three terminals with an aggregate capacity of 951,000 cubic meters. The terminals are situated at Muuga port (Pakterminal), as well as in the nearby industrial area of Iru (Trendgate) and the industrial town Maardu (Termoil), being connected with Muuga port by pipelines.

Vopak E.O.S. handled over 19 million tons of freight last year, which accounted for nearly 52 percent of the total amount handled at Port of Tallinn and for some 75 percent of the total amount of liquid cargoes handled here. The number of ships admitted with cargoes for Vopak was 364 in 2010.

At Muuga port a single area has remained that is suited for building a terminal for liquid cargoes, the so-called Lonessa territory in the western part of the port. For that area a zoning is valid permitting the establishment of a facility for liquid cargoes and a corresponding construction permit issued. The terminal would be laid out on an area of  20 hectares.