“There will be an expansion for sure,” Chief Executive Officer Saeed Khoory said about the joint venture storage facility Vopak Horizon Fujairah Ltd. “The company has a long- term plan for growth.”

Enoc, as the refiner is known, is a partner with Dutch storage terminal operator Royal Vopak NV in the Fujairah facility. It also has its own tanks in ports in Dubai and Fujairah, Khoory said.

The Vopak Horizon venture is raising capacity to 2.1 million cubic meters from 1.5 million cubic meters by adding tanks by the end of 2011. The venture will also add more capacity after a land reclamation project along the coast, he said.

Enoc uses the tanks run by the Vopak Horizon venture for fuel trading and uses tank space it holds on its own to store and blend fuel for domestic use. Enoc may add about 250,000 barrels of additional storage capacity to the tanks it runs on its own within two years, he said.

The company has 200,000 cubic meters of storage capacity for oil products in the Fujairah port and 2 million cubic meters of storage volume in Dubai’s Jebel Ali port.

Completed Expansion

Enoc completed an expansion of its Jebel Ali refinery last year and the facility began operating at its full capacity of 120,000 barrels a day in the fourth quarter. The facility, located in a port area along Dubai’s coast, processes condensate, a light oil-like liquid found with natural gas to produce reformate, a product used for gasoline production. Enoc blends fuel additives in its storage tanks to provide the gasoline it sells in Dubai and neighboring sheikhdoms.

Expanding reformate production to 35,000 barrels a day means Enoc is self-sufficient in meeting gasoline demand at its own service stations in Dubai and neighboring emirates, Tayyeb Al Mulla, CEO of the company’s refining and marketing unit, said today. The company also participates in tenders from companies seeking to buy gasoline components, sells jet fuel at Dubai’s airports and exports naphtha, a product of the refining process, to Asia, Al Mulla said.

Enoc may plan some minor maintenance at the Jebel Ali refinery for the fourth quarter as it monitors operation of the new units, Al Mulla said.

Khoory and al Mulla were speaking at the opening of what the company calls a “green” service station, which uses energy saving technology, solar power, lubricants that are less polluting than normal products and carwashes that cut water use.

The Green Station also uses a vapor recovery system that captures fuel fumes normally lost into the atmosphere and pumps them back into storage tanks where they return to liquid form and can be sold as gasoline, Al Mulla said.