Sohar Industrial Port Company (SIPC) has shelved the proposed project to build a new liquid bulk jetty at the northern Omani port as it is not needed to meet projected demand.

The new jetty, which was planned to cater for tankers of up to 120,000 deadweight tonnes (dwt), will not go ahead despite the expansion of the Sohar refinery increasing the port’s oil products capacity.

“Despite the growth of liquid throughput, we do not need to necessarily increase our jetty capacity,” said Edwin Lammers, commercial director at Sohar Port and Freezone, at the Tank Storage Middle East conference in Abu Dhabi on 26 January.

According to sources, SIPC tendered the engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contract for the new liquid bulk jetty project in the second quarter of 2014.

The consultancy stage of the project was carried out by Dutch company Royal Haskoning and completed in the first quarter of 2013.

SIPC is a partnership between the Port of Rotterdam and the government of Oman.

Sohar will also be the location of the $3.6bn Liwa Plastics petrochemicals project, which will use feedstock from the expanded refinery and onshore gas production to make a range of chemical products.

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