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A logistic platform company with a warehouse facility to regularly service the FPSO Kwame Nkrumah at the Jubilee field is under construction in the Western Region.
To be known as the Takoradi Logistics Platform Company, the facility, expected to cost US$2.6 million, will be stocked with parts of an FPSO and other allied equipment to replace any part of the vessel in the event of a breakdown to ensure its uninterrupted operation.
A 30-acre land on which the steel fabricated platform facility will be sited was acquired last year and the project was expected to be completed before the close of this year.
The Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Ghana Shippers Authority, Mr Emmanuel Kofi Mbiah, told the Daily Graphic in Accra that his out fit, entered into a joint venture partnership with a US-based firm, NCI, under which the latter would import a steel fabrication to be assembled in Takoradi to house the facility.
He said unlike other oil-producing countries that had created logistic platforms to regularly maintain their FPSO, Ghana lacked such a facility which, he noted, undermined the country’s readiness to ensure an uninterrupted export of crude oil onto the international market.
He explained that when the platform was finally established, it would be stocked with equipment to always ensure a swift replacement of any defective part of the FPSO.
Mr. Mbiah added that to ensure the platform was constantly supplied with vessel parts, the authority would link the system with oil drilling companies through computerisation to help detect a faulty part of the FPSO for prompt replacement.
Recently elected Chairman of the Legal Committee of the International Maritime Organisation (IMO), the CEO, describing the size of the platform, said a helipad was to be created in the platform for the conveyance of parts by a helicopter to replace a defective part of the FPSO during emergency cases.
He said the Tennessee-based NCL, as part of the construction programme, brought drawings of the platform into the country for study and vetting before an approval.
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