Sonangol signed this Wednesday in Luanda the three contracts related to the Terminal, resulting from public tenders for companies interested in the completion of the project, initially handed over to a company linked to businesswoman Isabel dos Santos, and already the target of a previous award.
In a statement, Sonangol said that the tender for contracting engineering services, procurement, construction and commissioning (EPCC), won by OECI, another for the supervision of the project, awarded to DAR Angola, and also for the Environmental Impact Assessment of the project, awarded to SOAPRO.
The signing ceremony was attended by the Secretary of State for Petroleum, José Alexandre Barroso, who, representing the Minister of Mineral Oil and Gas Resources, Diamantino Azevedo, opened the event, and was followed by the signing of the contracts by the Chairman of the Board of Directors (PCA) of Sonangol, Gaspar Martins, and by the Executive Director, Jorge Vinhas.
Sonangol stresses that the Barra do Dande Project, in Bengo province, is a strategic project and of national interest, which integrates the objectives defined in the Executive's National Development Plan 2018-2022, as the main platform to ensure the storage and reception of oil products for the country's strategic, security and operational reserves.
The project also aims to promote Dande as an important 'hub' for fuel storage and marketing in the region.
With a fuel storage capacity of 580,000 cubic metres of refined products, the TOBD is due to be completed, in this first phase, by the end of 2022, Sonangol said.
The TOBD, Sonangol adds, will supply the country's needs, associated to the existing capacity, and will also make the process of receiving and distributing refined products "safer, more efficient and less costly.
Sonangol has awarded OECI the construction of the Dande bar ocean terminal, with an overall value of US$547.8 million.
According to a document to which Lusa had access at the time, the international public tender was launched on January 28 of this year, with eight competitors having presented proposals, five of which were individual companies and three associations of companies in consortium.
Besides the construction of the terminal, the contract also includes the conclusion of the storage park for refined products and the construction of the dock for mooring ships.
In order to ensure compliance with the deadlines defined for the execution of the contract, with a term of 36 months, 17 of which for the execution of the work, Sonangol is asking the OECI, in coordination with the project management, to begin its mobilization for the 'site' of the ocean terminal now, with the objective of starting the activities defined in the work plan.
A memorandum of understanding had been signed between Sonangol and a Dubai sheikh in November 2019 for the development of the terminal, but has since failed to materialize.
The memorandum of understanding with Angolan oil company Sonangol for the construction of a logistics base for the storage of petroleum products in the Dande bar was estimated at $600 million.
The project to store oil products, seen as strategic, was started in 2014 and interrupted in 2016, due to the economic context that the country and the company were experiencing in that period.
The construction of the infrastructure was previously estimated at $1.5 billion and was to be developed by Atlantic Ventures, a company associated with Isabel dos Santos, daughter of former President José Eduardo dos Santos, who saw the contract revoked in 2018, and who at the time filed a lawsuit against the Angolan state.
At the time, the schedule indicated that the structure would be operational in the first half of 2022 and the start of construction was scheduled for 2020.
