Area claimed to the sea by refilling it with sea sand upon modification of the channel and deepening of the Bahía Blanca harbour access channel to 45 feet (1990) .

As a result, 120 hectares of firm land were claimed. Both the Profertil SA and Mega SA projects developed on that land.

The photographs below show the evolution of the area as from the beginning of the refill to these days.

Mega S.A.

MEGA S.A. is a company owned by Repsol-YPF, Petrobras and Dow.

Compañía Mega's industrial facilities are located in Loma la Lata (Neuquén) and on Cangrejales, Bahía Blanca. Both plants are in turn linked by a 600-km, 12 inch polyduct lying through the Neuquén, Río Negro, La Pampa and Buenos Aires provinces.

Compañía Mega's industrial objective is the recovery and fractionation of the natural gas heavy compounds.

The plant at Cangrejales, Bahía Blanca is a fractionating plant of a mix of natural gas heavy compounds (NGL), which come from Neuquén. The lot on which the plant was built is of approximately 45 hectares.

The recovered natural gas fluids are fractionated in the following by-products:

• Ethane (gas phase)
• Propane (liquid phase)
• Butane (liquid phase)
• Gasoline (liquid phase)

The amount of NGL will allow the production of :

The plant has three 35,000 cum- propane and butane (—43ºC and —8º C) refrigerated storage tanks. There are two 15,000 cum floating roof tanks for gasoline storage.

The ethane is sent through an ethane pipeline directly from the Mega plant to Petroquímica Bahía Blanca (PBB-Polisur) at the Petrochemical complex.

For the dispatch of the remaining products (butane, propane and gasoline), a 270-m long jetty has been built allowing the mooring of ships of 230 m.

Five state-of-the-art loading arms have been installed on the jetty.

Three loading arms are for butane and propane (loading rate is 2,000 m3/hour). And two loading arms operate with gasoline, at a loading rate of 1,000 m3/hour

Profertil S.A

Profertil S.A. is equally owned by, Repsol-YPF S.A. and Agrium Inc.

Agrium is an important Canadian company dealing with the Production and Sales of fertilizers since 1931.

YPF S.A., now owned by Repsol, is the most important Argentine company, devoted to fuel and natural gas production.

The plant, located at "CANGREJALES", in Ingeniero White Harbour, Bahía Blanca; has facilities to produce, store and dispatch granular urea and liquid ammonia, by sea or by land (truck or train) for foreign and domestic trade.

The granular urea is stored in two 75,000 ton silos, which mean a 45-day production.

The liquid ammonia is stored in a 30,000 cum or 20,000 ton tank. Thus providing 80 days of supply during normal operation or 9 days supply when the plant is shut down.

Each urea storing silo has an automatic extraction system, similar to those used in the mining industry.

This equipment, together with the conveying belts, allow a simultaneous loading of ships, trucks and trains, with a high productivity, preserving the quality of the product.

The plant has a loading capacity of 1,250 Ton/h, and a combined truck and train capacity of 500 Ton/h.

Ferrosur and Ferro Expreso Pampeano trains easily arrive to the plant. The convoys are formed of 30 wagons, thus a train is loaded with 1,200 tons, approximately.

The Jetty

The ship has access to the jetty through the main channel, which allows the navigation of 45' draught ships, when taking advantage of the tide amplitude.

The jetty was built at the North of the entrance channel, in the area called Cangrejales.

It is basically civil works, weighing equipment for urea dispatch and a loading arm for the ammonia dispatch.

The civil works are a main body with a mooring line parallel to the navigation channel, three mooring posts "Duques de Alba" joined by metallic structures and an inland access linking it with the rest of the facilities. Vehicles (ambulance, worker transport, industrial machinery, tank trucks, cars, etc) have an easy access to the working area.

The main body is 200 m long, designed for 235 m long ships to moor. It is mounted on reinforced concrete piles supporting a prefab beam structure. On this structure, in the working areas and vehicle access, the concrete plates have a support, thus forming the jetty floor.

It has reinforced flexible defenses and bitts alongisde the mooring line. At the jetty ends, there are modern "Mampay" mooring lines, on the mooring posts ("Duques de Alba").

On the civil works and alongisde the mooring line, a metallic structure has been mounted for the shipping site where the conveying belt is located for transporting the granular urea.

Such a conveyor feeds the loading arm which moves along the jetty by a system parallel to its shaft.

This equipment, weighing 2,500 tons, has a mobile arm and a telescopic tube for reaching the holds and it loads the product at a rate of 1,250 Ton/h.

At half-way of the jetty's main body, a retractile arm for liquid ammonia is located. It weighs 200 Tons and can dispatch 500 Ton/h.

At the western side of the jetty, a tower with a scale to weigh shipped urea has been installed. It has four buckets supported by loading cells. There is also a control room, offices, and services from where the dispatching operation is electronically controlled.

The complex has additional services such as firefighting network, lightings, beacons, plant utilities (industrial air, nitrogen, vapor), computer networks, etc.

Its design is mainly oriented to comply with the necessary minimum requirements for a seaborne dispatch of the granular urea and liquid ammonia the plant produces.