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Crude hubs near the mouth of the Gulf

Fujairah, on the east coast of Opec member UAE, has grown in importance as an oil trading hub with the opening of a pipeline last year that allows the UAE to export most of its crude without having to sail tankers through Hormuz. Securing strategic oil storage space at Fujairah has been a top priority for oil producers and trading houses, although the pace of new capacity coming online has lost pace over the past year.

Fujairah also faces rising competition from the port of Sohar, down the coast in small non-Opec producer Oman, which is also expanding its facilities by upgrading a refinery. Several oil traders have already secured oil storage space in Sohar.

Jebel Ali PORT

• Although inside the Strait of Hormuz, and so lacking the strategic benefits of Gulf of Oman sites, the UAE’s Jebel Ali port is a major regional products blending hub.
• It is also an important fuel storage site with over three mcm of capacity at the port near Dubai.
• Enoc is one of the biggest storage owners at the port with its 1.2 mcm of capacity.
• Emoil, a joint venture between Trafigura, UAE’s fuel retailer Emarat and BP, has a total of 228,000 cubic metres of storage for blending and storing gasoline products in a total of nine tanks. Emarat holds 60 per cent while BP and Trafigura hold 20 per cent, respectively.
• Emdad, a joint venture between Emarat, Air BP and Shell Trading Private Limited, has an aviation fuel storage facility with a capacity of 155,000 cubic metres.
• Noble Group has taken up about 200,000 cubic metres of clean storage at the port.
• UAE-based trader Fal Oil has 80,000 cubic metres and Gulf Refining has 370,000. Star Energy Oil Tanking, a joint venture between Hamburg-based Oiltanking and Abu Dhabi-based Star Energy Group has 920,000 cubic metres of storage.
• Dubai Supply Authority, which supplies the energy needs of utilities and industries, also has oil storage tanks at the port.

Port of Fujairah

• Oil storage capacity in Fujairah reached just over four mcm last year, according to port data and is expected to double before 2016.
• Vitol, the world’s largest oil trader, has around 1.170 mcm of storage at the port through Fujairah Refinery Company, which is owned by Vitol Tank Terminals International and 10 per cent by the Fujairah government.
• Trade sources say all of the oil products stored in its 47 tanks are owned by Vitol.
• Vopak Horizon Fujairah Limited, a joint venture between the Netherlands-based Royal Vopak, Dubai’s Enoc, the government of Fujairah and Kuwait’s Independent Petroleum Group added 600,000 cubic metres of capacity last May as part of is sixth phase expansion.
• Currently, the preparations for the seventh phase are under going which is due to bring another 855,000 cubic metres of storage in 2014. The construction has not yet started.
• Vopak Horizon has a total of 2.1 mcm of storage and trade sources say all tanks are leased out. Leading commodities and oil traders like Trafigura, Total’s Totsa as well as PetroChina which has become increasingly active in the Gulf trading market last year, are among the tenants of Vopak’s tanks.
• In the latest expansion added it 20 new tanks for storing fuel oil and clean petroleum products. BP has 200,000 cubic metres of storage of this while Phillips 66, independent US refiner as a result of ConocoPhillips spin-off, has 160,000 and Litasco, the trading arm of Russian oil company Lukoil, has 240,000 cubic metres.
• UAE-based trader Gulf Petrochem’s 412,000 cubic metres of oil storage came online in mid-January 2013.
• UAE fuel retailer Emarat currently has 263,000 cubic metres of oil storage capacity following its expansion in 2011. With the addition of 10 more tanks the company now has a total of 13 tanks for gas oil, gasoline and jet fuel.
• Azeri national oil company Socar’s trading arm has a plan to build 641,000 cubic metres of storage capacity in a joint-venture with Swiss trading house Aurora Progress and the government of Fujairah. It will consist of 20 tanks for clean and dirty products once the full project completed. The first phase with 114,000 cubic metres came online in March 2012 and the second phase with 232,000 cubic metres is due to come online this year and it will include clean tanks.
• Global marine fuel supplier Chemoil Energy has storage of around 90,000 cubic metres at the port and it is planning to add 580,000 cubic metres this year.
• Singapore-based Concord Energy and China’s Sinopec are expected to start building oil storage in Fujairah this year. The first phase with 880,000 cubic metres of capacity is due to come online next year, while the remaining 245,000 cubic metres is scheduled for 2015.
• Dubai government-owned fuel retailer Enoc has oil storage through its joint venture with VHFL and it also owns 217,000 cubic metres of capacity at 11 tanks through its subsidiary Horizon Terminals.
• PetroChina has sublet clean storage at Fujairah from Vopak, after initial plans to build from scratch with Vopak were scrapped.

Sohar, Oman

• The Port of Sohar, a deep-sea port in the Sultanate of Oman, is managed by Sohar Industrial Port Company, a joint venture between the government of Oman and the Dutch port of Rotterdam.
• It has 1.285 million cubic metres of oil storage, all allocated for clean products and all currently leased out and full, trade sources said.
• Of the total, Gunvor has around 180,000 cubic metres of storage for distillates and gasoline while Shell has a total of 485,000 cubic metres, of which 325,000 cubic metres is for gas-to-liquids.
• Oman Trading International has around 200,000 cubic metres of storage for light and middle distillates while Glencore’s 114,000 cubic metres of storage is mostly for naphtha and gasoil.
• Oman Aromatics, part of Oman Oil Refineries and Petroleum Industries Company also leases 303,000 cubic metres of storage space at the port.
• Sohar is also home to a 116,000-barrels-per-day refinery, whose capacity Oman wants to boost by some 50,000bpd to 60,000bpd by 2016. Traders say there are also additional storage facilities at the refinery.