OREANDA-NEWS. June 25, 2013. Avedia Energy said it had taken delivery of the first set of new liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) storage tanks.

The Cape Town-based oil and gas firm did not disclose the number of these tanks but said the containers landed at the Saldanha port after a six-week trek from China, where the tanks were manufactured.

The first of these containers have now been cleared and are kept at the Port of Saldanha.

The LPG product will be dispersed to LPG users and bottling plants throughout the Western Cape and beyond.

This will happen once the LPG storage facility has been commissioned in December 2013.

“Avedia has obtained the annual import of 100 000MT LPG from the Bonny River Terminal in Nigeria, with the first shipment of product programmed to arrive in the first quarter of 2014,” Atose Aguelle, MD of Avedia Energy, said.

Earlier in March this year Avedia said it had plans to invest about R300 million in South Africa’s LPG infrastructure over the next 36 months.

This will include investment in the storage and handling facility at Saldanha Bay. This facility will receive LPG through the port facilities and road tanker.

According to Avedia, this will be the first significant dedicated LPG import facility on a 4300 kilometre shoreline, stretching from Luanda in Angola to Richards Bay on the KwaZulu Natal coast.

The facility is set to supply a total storage volume of 8 000MT in its final phase.

This facility will also lift the existing import of LPG storage in South Africa by at least 80 percent.

The Western Cape is the second largest consumer of LPG in South Africa.

“The current LPG shortfall and erratic production of LPG in South Africa is exacerbated by the country’s handicapped LPG storage and transport infrastructure,” Aguele said.

“This means that South Africans are simply not able to consider LPG as a reliable and cost-effective energy alternative.”