Turner & Townsend has been granted a contract by Black Rhino Mining Oil and Gas Services (BRM) for the provision of project management and project control services for the 550 km East Africa fuel pipeline.

The pipeline project which costs $1.55-billion was an infrastructure project being carried out by the governments of Ethiopia and Djibouti and is to convey diesel, petrol and jet fuel.

The pipeline, ship offloading facilities and storage will have the ability to convey over 240 000 bpd of fuel and will consist of a 20” steel overland pipeline from Damerjog, in Djibouti, to Awash in Ethiopia, pump and monitoring stations, as well as a buffer storage tank farm at Damerjog. This was joined to a terminal bulk storage tank farm and truck loading facility at Awash and an offloading infrastructure in Djibouti.

The project is expected to assist in meeting the two countries’ fast increasing demand for refined products, easing the huge pressure on Djibouti and Ethiopia’s existing fuel transportation system by road.

“The project is now in the set-up phase, with the design and procurement processes taking place over the coming months, and [it] will address both the planned growth in demand and the short- and long-term fuel delivery problems in Ethiopia,” Mark Haselau, Turner & Townsend’s Energy director told Engineering news.

Turner & Townsend’s scope of work is to provide full project control services, which includes estimating, performance measurement and reporting and document control, as well as contracts administration and procurement management.

Anita Fatunji