As the Strait of Hormuz has now been closed for nearly nine weeks, the oil hub at Fujairah in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) has become an even more prominent oil export and bunkering hub than it has ever been.
Thanks to its strategic position on the east coast of the UAE and outside the Strait of Hormuz, Fujairah is now the key export port for crude and fuels from the UAE and an even more important bunkering port for ship refueling.
The strategic position of Fujairah outside the blocked Strait of Hormuz made it a target of Iranian attacks as early as the second week of the now nine-week-long war. In March, attacks at Fujairah suspended oil loading and bunkering operations several times, before the early-April ceasefire temporarily halted attacks from Iran.
However, the oil port was hit earlier this week after the United States announced Project Freedom to escort ships out of the Strait of Hormuz – currently paused after just three days by President Trump.
The new attack at the Fujairah Petroleum Industries Zone caused a fire and sent oil prices surging on Monday, as the oil hub outside the Strait of Hormuz is strategic to the UAE’s oil exports and to global shipping.
Fujairah is the UAE’s only access to the Indian Ocean and is one of the few key oil export points that do not depend on tankers passing through the Strait of Hormuz.
Related: U.S. Fuel Exports Hit Record High as Hormuz Crisis Reshapes Global Energy Flows
Fujairah is not only a key export route bypassing the critical oil chokepoint, but it is also a major hub for crude and fuels in storage and a key bunkering port for refueling ships. The port is the most important bunkering hub in the Middle East and one of the world’s most critical and largest ship-refueling sites alongside Singapore and Rotterdam, as well as China’s Zhoushan.
The port of Fujairah is the end point of a pipeline carrying crude from the giant oilfields in Abu Dhabi.
The Abu Dhabi Crude Oil Pipeline (ADCOP) runs from onshore oil facilities at Habshan to Fujairah. The original nameplate capacity of the line is 1.5 million barrels per day (bpd) with a reported current capacity close to 1.8 million bpd, according to the International Energy Agency. The UAE has typically exported around 1.1 million bpd of domestic crude via this route, leaving room for up to 700,000 bpd of additional volumes in the case of a Strait closure.
Fujairah is in no way in a position to replace, even partially, the Middle East’s export volumes lost to the closed Strait of Hormuz. But it is critical for supplies to Asia, especially India, in this period of heightened tensions.
