CT port closes to secure giant oil vessel

Minor repairs will take two months
RAY SMUTS
THE GIANT oil industry vessel, FPSO Dalia, was finally positioned and safely secured in the Port of Cape Town last week, after an unsettling experience off Mossel Bay. The port was closed to other traffic while the lengthy berthing process took place, given that all four tugs of the NPA’s marine services division were deployed in the exercise. The 320-metre long, 195 000-ton floating production oil storage platform was under tow from Korea by two anchor supply tugs, Fairmount Summit and Fairmount Sherpa, when tow lines apparently snapped, causing the tugs to temporarily lose control of the odd-looking vessel. Cape Town harbour master, Captain Rufus Lekala, says the Total-owned vessel will spend about two months undergoing minor repairs in Duncan Dock after which she will be towed to Angola where she will remain for 20 years, her operational lifespan. FPSOs are based on many off-shore oilfields, processing and storing crude oil for transhipment to tankers and eventual transportation to an oil refinery. Lekala agrees with port manager, Sanjay Govan, that calls by oil industry vessels provide “minimal returns” from an NPA perspective but maintains it is necessary for the port of Cape Town to be involved in this sector, which represents hugely lucrative opportunities for ship repair, maintenance and supply companies. By way of example, another FPSO, Glas Dowr, now deployed at the Sable oilfield off the southern Cape coast, spent many months in Cape Town undergoing a complete refit which cost several hundred million rand.