The work is part of a new facility being built at Fujairah to handle crude oil exports from Abu Dhabi.
The facility – called the Industrial Port – is eventually expected to handle up to 1.8 million barrels of crude oil a day.
“The new port will have 17 docks for storing and loading crude oil and will eventually be able to handle 60% to 70% of Abu Dhabi’s total oil exports,” Murad, told local reporters.
He also said that plans were being studied to build a new oil refinery in Fujairah with a capacity of up to 500,000 barrels per day.
Players said any increase in tanker traffic generated by the projects would bring new opportunities for bunker suppliers.
Fujairah is already the world’s second largest bunker hub. Officials last month reported that port’s bunker sales, including sales from off-shore bunkering, had reached approximately 19 million metric tonnes (mt) in 2008, a 15% rise on sales in 2007.
Meanwhile, plans have been announced to expand Fujairah’s on-shore oil storage capacity.
The United Arab Emirates-based Gulf Petrochem FZC says it has negotiated the lease of 200,000 square metres of land near Fujairah port as a site for a new oil storage terminal.
Walter Moone, Managing Director of the Vopak Horizon Fujairah terminal, the hub’s largest bulk liquid storage provider, told Bunkerworld he expected to see Fujairah grow from a “regional energy hub” to a “global hub”.
He pointed to the region’s growing refining sector, a factor bringing additional production into the market.