Abu Dhabi has started exporting its first crude from the Habshan-Fujairah pipeline that bypasses the Strait of Hormuz, shipping the fuel to a refinery in Pakistan
The pipeline, stretching from Abu Dhabi to neighbouring Fujairah on the Gulf of Oman, loaded the first shipment of 500,000 barrels to the Pakistani plant, Mohamed Bin Dhaen Al-Hamli, United Arab Emirates oil minister, said after inaugurating the network.
The pipeline can transport 1.5 million barrels a day of crude and is expected to have a regular flow of oil by August.
The 370km link, which cost International Petroleum Investment Co. around US$4 billion to build, will enable Abu Dhabi to export as much as 70 per cent of its crude from Fujairah, where tankers will be able to pick up the oil instead of sailing into the Persian Gulf via the Strait of Hormuz, which is overseen by Iran.
Until now, the UAE, like Qatar and Kuwait, had been entirely dependent on Hormuz to export its crude.
Iran had threatened to block the strait, a chokepoint for tankers carrying a fifth of the world’s traded oil, in retaliation to sanctions imposed due to the country’s nuclear programme.
