December 13, 2013 [Bloomberg] - Royal Vopak NV (VPK) and Emirates National Oil Co., partners in a fuel-storage terminal in the United Arab Emirates, may add crude oil tanks to boost business at the site outside the Strait of Hormuz, officials said.
The companies are studying plans for the tanks, Saeed Khoory, chief executive officer at Dubai refiner ENOC, told reporters today at the terminal in the emirate of Fujairah. Tankers would dock at the Port of Fujairah and crude would flow by pipeline to the adjacent Vopak Horizon terminal, as the venture is known, he said.
Fujairah is in talks with Vopak Horizon and other storage operators about building crude storage capacity, Captain Mousa Murad, general manager of the port, said. The Port will build loading points capable of serving large crude tankers with the aim of having them completed in mid-2016 if terminal operators agree to add tanks, he said. The Abu Dhabi pipeline, currently operating at about 50 percent of its capacity, may boost trading at Fujairah, Murad said.
The sheikhdom, one of seven in the U.A.E., is nestled between the Persian Gulf state’s Indian Ocean coast and the Hajar Mountains, which provided the rocks for the artificial islands off the coast of neighboring Dubai. Abu Dhabi, the U.A.E. capital and holder of most of its oil, last year started the first crude pipeline to Fujairah, which lies outside the Hormuz shipping chokepoint. The Abu Dhabi pipeline may boost trade from Fujairah, Murad said.
Vopak Horizon has resumed operations at two of its loading jetties that were damaged in a shipping collision last month, Cees de Greve, the terminal’s general manager said today. The jetties are working at about 90 percent capacity. The venture is still evaluating damage to two other jetties, and it could take a few months before they are repaired and investigations are complete, he said. There were no injuries or spills.
Product Pipelines
The terminal has a total of six jetty mooring points and one remote loading buoy. Other tank terminals operating in Fujairah don’t have their own berths and instead rely on pipeline links to jetties in the main port. Vopak Horizon yesterday inaugurated pipelines to the port. The conduits, two for refined-petroleum, two for fuel oil and one for nitrogen, began operating last month, giving the venture access to 11 berths in total, de Greve said.
