Spotted: Ship-to-Ship Oil Transfer at Sohar Port

For today’s spotted article we have chosen a ship-to-ship (STS) transfer of fuel oil that took place last week at Oman’s SOHAR Port and Freezone between crude oil tanker MV Hafid and Panama-flagged tanker M Spirit.

The delicate operation, which included light and heavy fuel oil transfer, was conducted by marine cargo transfer company Fendercare Marine.

The company handles around 2,800 transfers per year and has an immaculate safety record as in 2013 it managed to close to half a billion barrels globally without incident.

“Thursday’s transfer demonstrates that the marine side of our business is still booming,” said SOHAR Chief Executive, Andre Toet. “With all our recent successes and the phenomenal growth in investments we’ve seen on the landside of the SOHAR operation, it is sometimes easy to overlook what is happening out at sea,” he concluded.

SOHAR also plans to handle liquefied natural gas (LNG) ship-to-ship transfers in the near future.

Image: Sohar