FILLING STATIONS, RETAILERS IN PIPELINE

Matsapha - Alabasta Petroleum (Pty) Ltd has exclusively told the Business Desk that it will soon enter the fuel retail business.

The company said it aimed at opening filling stations in the country by availing fuel retail opportunities to local businesses and funding where necessary. Alabasta’s project architect Dumsane Tsabedze added that following the construction of the facility, they would procure retailers who would supply the market with the fuel.

He said the retailers would be assisted with access to the market and businesses that wished to participate should attend the scope meeting which would be held in Matsapha, February 24, 2023. “Members of the public are invited to a scoping meeting where detailed information pertaining the project would be obtained,” he said.

Interested

The architect added that the meeting would also give interested and affected parties an opportunity to voice their concerns regarding the project to ensure that they were addressed during the environmental impact assessments in accordance with the Eswatini Environmental Authority (EEA). The storage facility is not the only project that is expected to commence this year. A rail link project with an estimated value of E32.3 billion has been listed as part of the country’s economic growth forecast projects.

The project entails the construction of a 150km long new railway line from Lothair (South Africa) to Sidvokodvo in Eswatini, that will provide a strategic rail link with the ports of Richards Bay and/or Maputo. As well as the development of the Mpaka Inland Container depot (ICD) Greenfield project requires a 22 000m² hardstanding for container staging office buildings, weighbridge and warehousing. The estimated cost of the projects was US$1.8 billion total, with the Rail Link costing US$1.2 billion (E21.6 billion) and the ICD costing US$0.6 billion (E10.8 billion) and the mean IRR value as 14.6 per cent at phased approach.

Strategic

This project is a joint inter-railway strategic initiative between the railway companies of the two countries, Transnet and Eswatini Railways. The Eswatini Rail Link (ESRL) is a seamless regional railway network running across three countries, South Africa, Eswatini and Mozambique. Eswatini Investment Promotion Authority (EIPA) Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Sibani Mngomezulu mentioned that a feasibility study for the rail link was completed.

Mngomezulu said construction of the hardstanding was completed in May of 2022 and the access road paving was yet to be done and that there was a need- funding for completion of rest of the infrastructure. The CEO said the funding would be raised on the strength of take or pay offtake agreements to be signed between the Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) and each railway entity. He said the two railway entities would be charged a track fee by the SPV for utilising the railway line that has been constructed with the funding raised by the SPV. “Economic activity is expected to accelerate, with mining, agriculture and manufacturing continuing to increase its contribution to the GDP,” he said.

Opportunities

The CEO added that approximately 5 000 work opportunities during construction for 36 months and 263 new permanent jobs during operations will be availed by the project. Other benefits include the decongestion of traffic at the border and create capacity up to 45mtpa for general freight export. Mngometulu added that business opportunities have also availed themselves for construction industry and small medium enterprises (SMEs) to provide outsource services.

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