Sector: Energy

Gam-Petroleum Storage Facility is part of the Spectrum Group whose CEO is Muhammad Bazzi (aka Bassi, Bashi). The company has a modern storage facility at the Mandinari Fuel Storage Depot located on the Western Region of The Gambia.

Inaugurated on the 24th May 2008, it was built at a cost of €32 million (US $50 million). Equity for the project was split between Gam-Petroleum's holding group, Total International, which will be the exclusive supplier of petroleum products for the new terminal, and partly from Gambian and European banks.

Mandinari Facility:
Built according to international standards with SGS certification, it consists of 17 fuel tanks. The total storage capacity of the site is 51,000 metric tons of heavy and light fuel oils as well as LPG (liquid propane gas), and includes 19 loading bays for tanker trucks, state-of-the-art technology in gauging and metering equipment, a fully equipped LPG bottling plant and 3 off-shore pipelines of 2.5 km each to access the draft for birthing big fuel tankers.

Gam-Petroleum now operates the sub-region's largest oil and gas storage container facility, which is set to boost supply not only in The Gambia but also in neighbouring countries, and it is hoped that the terminal will act as a refueling stop and bunkering hub for vessels en route to South Africa and South America. 

The one existing terminal in the country was built in the 1940s in Banjul at Half-Die area, and has a limited capacity to supply the whole of The Gambia with just under 1 month of fuel. This has always meant that petroleum imports had to be timed exactly. When oil tankers were delayed at other ports or on the high seas, it often resulted in shortages, and a halt in supply. The only other heavy fuel oil storage facilities in the country are situated at the power generation plants, which had meant extra costs in transport as fuel was taken by transport to the plants from the port. The Mandinari fuel depot can hold 6 months of the Gambia's fuel and gas consumption from the current storage capacity of less than a month. 

This increased fuel storage capacity will have accompanying secondary effects on availability and prices which in turn have significant effects on domestic developments.