Joint Tank Services (JTS) has announced to establish a new depot in SOHAR Freezone on a 20,000 sq m green-field site, to support cleaning, storage and repair services for ISO tanks
With the new facility in SOHAR, JTS aims to consolidate existing services to the tank container industry, as well as expand its portfolio in the future by developing business offerings to the chemical industry. These include areas such as chemical drumming, warehousing and distribution as the value-added petrochemical industry grows in SOHAR.
Construction of the new JTS facility is expected to start during Q2 2018, which is subject to approval from the relevant environmental authorities in Oman, with trial operations to be underway by the Q4 2018.
Speaking after the signing of the land lease agreement, Jamal Aziz, CEO of SOHAR Freezone, said, “As our new Liwa Plastics Project comes on-stream at SOHAR, we are going to see phenomenal growth in the petrochemical and downstream plastics industry here, with pursuant growth in the number and complexity of ISO containers being handled through the port.”
“Having specialists like JTS on hand will help to create the kind of world-class cluster we are hoping for, putting Oman on the map as a major plastics producer,” he added.
Tank containers are made to ISO standards of stainless steel, usually surrounded by a protective insulating layer of polyurethane and aluminium. The tanks are mounted in the middle of a steel frame so they can be handled like regular twenty-foot containers. Originally developed in the UK in the 1960s, there are estimated to be upwards of 400,000 ISO tank containers in service in the world at any one time, built to a variety of specifications to transport hazardous and non-hazardous cargoes.
