Malaysia builds petroleum hub

Construction of a regional petroleum hub officially started on July 5 at Tanjung Bin, which is around 40 km west of Johor Baharu in Malaysia. The Asia Petroleum Hub (APH), which is a government-sponsored project, is designed to have a total storage capacity of one million cubic meters (cbm). The hub is also designed to handle more than 30 million tons of petroleum products, as well as to accommodate more than 3,000 vessels calling at the terminal annually. It will be an integrated facility with multiple jetties, capable of handling all sizes of vessels from 1,000 deadweight tons (DWT) coastal tankers to 350,000 DWT ultra-large crude carriers. Total investment in the APH is said to be US$406 million. (July 9, 2007)