PetroZim project progressing well

PETROZIM Line (Private) Limited’s (PZL) US$20 million project that will see Harare become a regional hub for fuel distribution is at an advanced stage.
According to PZL executive director Peter Masvikeni – the detailed designs of the upgrade for both the first phase and the second phase had been completed.

“We have gone to the stage of procurement where to date we have contracted six vendors for the supply of critical equipment. So far we have completed the detailed designs of the upgrade project for both the first phase and the second phase,” Masvikeni said.

PZL is an entity wholly owned by the National Oil Infrastructure Company of Zimbabwe (NOIC)
“We have gone to the stage of procurement where to date we have contracted six vendors for the supply of critical equipment. The equipment will basically start arriving during the third and fourth quarter of this year with construction expected to commence during the first quarter of 2023,” he said.

Masvikeni said the cost of the first phase was US$15 million and the second phase will require and addition US$5 million. All the funding being done by internally generated resources.

At the Annual General meeting held Monday, NOIC board chairman Daniel Mackenzie the board had recommended and the AGM approved, that the declaration of a dividend be waived in order to channel financial resources towards this project.

“As the representative of the shareholder, I am confident of the company’s positive performance into the future,” he said.
Ncube said this confidence emanates from the culture of leadership that the PZL leadership has fostered in the company and its employees.

In 2020 the PZL pumped a total of 1,22 billion litres from Feruka to Msasa, which was adequate for the intended customers and this thoughput was achieved in the face of the Covid-19 induced operational challenges.
In 2021 the company pumped a total of 1,19 billion litres from Feruka to Msasa.

According to Ncube, the imminent upgrade to establish Harare as the regional hub for fuel distribution is being done with PZL in conjunction with its Mozambican counterpart, CPMZ.

The pumping capacity of the pipeline will be upgraded from an annual volume throughput of 2, 19 billion liters to 3 billion litres. The objective is to achieve a capacity of five billion litres by 2025. These volumes translate to daily volumes of six million litres currently and 8,2 and 13, 7 million litres after the successive upgrades.