Singapore to build floating oil / petrochemicals storage at Pulau Sebarok

14-May-10

Singapore plans to proceed with construction of floating oil / petrochemicals storage at Pulau Sebarok to help boost supply of the much needed oil/ petrochemicals storage in Singapore's oil refining/trading hub. Pulau Sebarok is not far from Jurong Island, Singapore's main oil/petrochemicals hub. The island country faces problem of shortage of land amid increased demand for oil storage by traders. Hence JCT has decided to seek a multi-disciplinary team of consultants 'to develop the preliminary structural conceptual design and construct the VLFS storage facility at the proposed site at Pulau Sebarok'. The consultant is to prepare the engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) tender for the very large floating structures (VLFS), with the tender possibly going out by end 2010 or early 2011. JTC has also embarked on building first phase of Jurong Rock Cavern to store oil underground at an investment outlay of US$890 mln. Initiated in 2007, Phase I, which developed a preliminary structural conceptual design of an attached-to-land VLFS storage. This was followed by Phase II, that enveloped areas like environmental impact, marine soil investigation and engineering surveys and sea current monitoring and metocean design data analysis. Feasibility studies on the VLFS were completed in March 2010. JTC studies earlier ascertained that to be economical, the minimum storage capacity of a VLFS should be 300,000 cubic metres, or equivalent to that of a very large crude carrier. Development of the VLFS is to be held in four stages : 1) The appointed consultant will review the preliminary structural conceptual design of the floating storage and redesign it such that the VLFS will have the flexibility of being constructed from concrete or steel. It will also need to provide cost comparisons for the two. 2) Preparation of tender documents for the calling of the EPC tender as well as that for the environmental management and monitoring plan 3) Calling and evaluation of the tender 4) The VLFS construction and completion The VLFS would comprise two rectangular modules, each measuring 180m by 80m by 15m, and with 150,000 cu m capacity. Pulau Sebarok is currently used for onshore storage by Dutch terminal operator Vopak and PetroChina-owned Singapore Petroleum Company.