Fujairah fuels up to expand oil hub

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The world’s second-largest pit-stop venue for international shipping will more than double in size in three years as Fujairah undergoes a transformation into an oil hub to rival Singapore and Rotterdam.

The business of supplying and trading fuel is the quieter side of an oil industry that dominates Middle Eastern economies. Gulf states are big exporters of crude oil but many also import fuel oil, a viscous product of the refining process used in shipping and power stations. Much of that fuel oil is stored, blended and re-exported from Fujairah.

Fuel oil is the fuel of choice of the global shipping industry, and Fujairah has historically been a strategic refuelling stop for ships travelling between the western hemisphere and the Orient. But the new capacity will also cater to rising demand for the same fuel from power stations in the Gulf and Indian subcontinent, said Walter Moone, the general manager of Vopak Horizon Fujairah, one of the largest fuel suppliers based in the emirate.