In early November Platts reported that Iran was looking to bypass US and EU sanctions by exporting large amounts of fuel oil, with significant volumes being sold as bunker fuel in Fujairah.

“We would like to make it very clear that we don’t store any product with certificate of origin Iran at our terminal in Fujairah in the UAE, nor in any other terminal in our global network,” Vopak said in a statement emailed to Platts.

“Vopak follows strictly the rules and sanctions imposed to Iran in the countries that we operate in. We adhere to the US, EU and UN rules and sanctions,” the company said.

Iran has seen its crude exports fall sharply this year as a result of EU and US sanctions, although it said in late October it had managed to boost sales of bunker fuel to shipping in the Persian Gulf.

Iran’s oil ministry news service Shana reported Jalil Salari, managing director of the National Iranian Oil Products Distribution Company, saying the country had sold more than 800,000 mt of bunker fuel in the Gulf in the first six months of the current Iranian year (March 20-September 21).

The Vopak Horizon Fujairah terminal is a joint venture between Vopak, Horizon Terminals, the Fujairah government and Kuwait’s Independent Petroleum Group.

Following an expansion project earlier this year, the terminal has the capacity to store some 2.1 million cubic meters (13.2 million barrels) of oil products, and handles the full range of refined products.

Fujairah, already the biggest bunkering port in the Middle East, is also set to become an increasingly important storage hub with a number of other companies planning new storage projects in the emirate.

Fujairah authorities project that total storage capacity at the oil port will reach 6.8 million cu m by the end of 2012 and could double to 13.3 million cu m by 2015.