Chemoil Energy, a US-based marine fuel product supplier, has announced that its 450,000 cubic metre Singapore oil storage terminal will be ready to begin operations by the end of January 2008, with approximately half its capacity to be leased out.
The Helios terminal is expected to cost $122 million (87 million). Fuel oil storage capacity in Asia's oil hub will experience an aggregate addition of 3.55 million cubic metres or 61% by the end of 2008.
The company has decided to lease out half the capacity due to profitable long-term prospects for the storage industry.
Potential tenants include Japan's Marubeni Corp and Brazil's Petrobras, which occupies about 150,000 cubic metres of capacity at Chevron's Penjuru terminal.
Chemoil is also in discussions to sell the 275,000 tonne very large crude carrier, which it is presently using as a floating storage unit for its fuel oil trading activities.
Most of the new storage capacity in Singapore is expected to come onstream by the end of Q1 2008, including Hin Leong's Universal Terminal, Asia's largest with 2.3 million cubic metres.
Others include capacity additions at existing terminals run by commercial operators such as Royal Vopak and Horizon.
In April, Chemoil announced it was seeking to expand the Helios terminal by another 180,000 cubic metres to store clean products such as diesel and petrol, bringing its total to 630,000 cubic metres by mid-2008. The projected cost is $53 million.
