Fujairah is the third largest oil storage and petroleum products trading centre and second largest bunkering port in the world and is growing at an impressive rate
On day one of the Tank World Expo 2016 Conference, the Fujairah oil terminal commercial director Malek Azizeh described Fujairah as a strategic regional hub for products and crude. Fujairah offers the trading community a comprehensive range of products and services, including bunkering, trading and maintenance of vessels.
The Fujairah terminal caters the following – transfer of products between the various independent terminals, complete flexibility for traders to buy and sell under the freezone umbrella, ability to purchase bunker fuel for the purpose of refuelling, changing of crew if needed, medical services, ship maintenance and ship supplies.
The location of the port close to the Strait of Hormuz, the world’s most important oil transit chokepoint, reinforces its importance and has led to growing volumes through the port. In 2015, the Port of Fujairah reached a new record of 50mn tonnes of refined products throughput.
Additionally, the continued focus on diversification in Fujairah is resulting in investments being made in the downstream sector, including product specialty chemicals, bitumen and biofuels refineries, as well as chemical storage. Fujairah Oil Terminal FZC is the first independent third-party crude oil terminal to offer commercial storage to crude oil traders.
The Fujairah oil terminal is owned by China’s Sinopec (50 per cent), Australia’s Prostar Capital (40 per cent) and Government of Fujairah (10 per cent). The terminal is considering expansion options and currently evaluating future market outlook to build the most suitable tanks for the future. As crude storage and throughout volumes are gaining momentum, thanks to ADNOC’s large crude storage facility (8mn barrels) and the Port’s considerable investment in the very large crude oil carriers (VLCC) berths, many terminals in Fujairah are now considering building crude tanks instead of the traditional refined products tanks, which is the majority of Fujairah’s current capacity.
