MEG Mobilisation, Durban – Pemba

In late 2025, Afrishore was engaged by Tidewater to mobilise a bulk consignment of Mono-ethylene Glycol (MEG) through the Port of Durban for delivery to an operational campaign offshore Pemba, Mozambique. The scope ran the full mobilisation across both Tidewater vessels: procurement of the cargo, preparation and certification of the vessels, port operations and crew. It fell across the South African festive operational window – compressed working hours, reduced refinery and supply availability and constrained port and customs slots.

MEG carries stringent purity and contamination tolerances, and neither vessel was certified to carry it. Afrishore coordinated supply across multiple national suppliers to consolidate a single bulk volume sufficient for both deepwater scopes, and cleared the customs formalities ahead of loading to optimise the export process. In parallel, Afrishore ran the full cargo-tank cleaning and re-certification programme dockside in Durban, supervised the independent laboratory sign-off and managed the chain-of-custody documentation that certified both vessels MEG-ready prior to loading.

Four further work-streams ran inside the same berth window: bunkering for the Mozambique transit, third-party project cargo loading and lashing, full crew changes including immigration and accommodation and technical procurement with on-board technical support for sailing readiness. Each was sequenced against a single port call with no capacity to absorb a missed slot.

Both Tidewater vessels sailed Durban on schedule and arrived offshore Pemba in time to support the upstream MEG requirement, with no delay to the campaign.

Bulk chemical procurement, cargo-tank certification, bunkering, project cargo and crew rotation would ordinarily sit with five separate providers on five separate schedules. Held as a single project file across the tightest window in the South African operating year, the mobilisation became a repeatable framework for bulk chemical supply into the East African offshore market.

See the MEG mobilisation on LinkedIn ↗