When the new airport opened, receipt of jet fuel was at a marine jetty able to handle 2 x 6000 DWT vessels at once. Being within a marine conservation area, the habitat of the Chinese White Dolphin (sousa chinensis), the jetty was allowed a finite lifetime and government mandated that another solution in the form of a deepwater jetty and receiving facility elsewhere within Hong Kong waters had to be implemented. This would also allow deep sea vessels to deliver large cargoes of jet fuel, thereby reducing supply costs.
ejet were engaged by Airport Authority Hong Kong to carry out two detailed studies which focused on key issues for the development of the facility, namely evaluation of the storage capacity for the new facility together with tank number and sizing, and a feasibility study of jetty options and marine traffic impacts.
The latter study was particularly exacting because the proposed jetty was to be located in a very busy marine channel. This required detailed dialogue with stakeholders including fuel suppliers and the Marine Department of the Government of the Hong Kong SAR.
Due to its complexity, the implementation of the project became protracted. However we felt that we have made a major contribution at the outset, and the jetty study strengthened our capabilities in the design and operation of oil jetties and marine facilities.
This was further strengthened when a little time later, we managed one of the bids for the project, which included front end engineering and design for the subsea pipelines connecting the receipt facility to the airport. Once again, the busy shipping channel was an issue, this time increasing the difficulty of installing the pipelines and protecting them.
