After more than three years of engineering and 18 months of construction, Vopak Shanghai - Caojing Terminal has received its first ship. Vopak’s latest industrial chemical storage facility is located in the centre of the new Shanghai Chemical Industrial Park (SCIP) at Caojing in Hangzhou Bay. The project is a joint venture in which Vopak Logistics Asia Pacific B.V. and the Shanghai Chemical Industrial Park (SCIP) each have a 50% stake.

During the first half of October the new Vopak terminal has started handling gas ships of LPG, propylene and ethylene. For the next 18 months construction of the facility will continue as planned. The jetty is unique in the Vopak network. The main trestle is 1.6 kilometres long and will begin operation with 5 berths with a 6th berth still under construction. The jetty is designed with possibility to be expanded up to 16 berths to meet the demand of the Shanghai Chemical Industrial Park as it continues to develop.

Currently there are more than 100 employees in the joint venture company. Training of the terminal staff has been ongoing for more than one year. Vopak standards and practices have been adopted in the development of the new company. Engineering, operations and customer service employees will employ Vopak best practices from the start of operations. The Caojing Terminal is implementing Vopak’s PEPI system for operations and management of all IT requirements of the facility.

It is expected that Phase I of the facility will be completed in 2005, by which time the industrial terminal will be able to handle more than 4 million tons of petrochemicals annually through 50 storage tanks with a total capacity of 240,000 cubic meters. Phase I activities alone will generate more than 1,000 ship calls annually, handling approximately one hundred trucks per day and filling more than 1.3 million drums each year. Phase II of the project is already underway.