Crude, oil products trading at UAE's Fujairah climbs 9% to record 109 mil mt

Crude and oil products trading at the UAE's Port of Fujairah climbed 9% on the year in 2022 to a record 109 million mt, with the number of vessels calling up 3.5% at 4,720, according to port data provided to S&P Global Commodity Insights Feb. 3.

Total exports and imports of crude and refined oil products, or throughput, came to 96 million mt, plus another 13 million mt were traded among the Fujairah energy hub, according to the port. The hub consists of 15 terminals and three refineries owned by Vitol, Uniper Energy, and Ecomar. The oil giant Abu Dhabi National Oil Co. is also part of the hub but the port's numbers don't include ADNOC. Traders at the hub use the jetties or berths owned by the port and by Vopak to export and import crude and refined oil products. Throughput in 2021 was 88 million mt, plus another 12 million mt of trading between terminals, with vessel calls at 4,560.

The port is attractive to traders because it offers two matrix manifold systems, said Martijn Heijboer, the port's business development manager. They provide tank storage terminals with full connections to any of the oil berths. The tank storage terminals are required to connect a minimum number of black oil and white oil lines to one of the manifolds and in return they get access to all nine main berths, 16 wing berths, one VLCC jetty and two dedicated bunker barges via the port's dock lines.

"This provides for very competitive and flexible logistic solutions," Heijboer said.

VLCC connection

The matrix manifold system also offers the option of transferring products directly between tank storage terminals without having to charter a vessel. In fact, Fujairah Oil Terminal, the largest independent storage terminal at the port by throughput, is spending $45 million to connect its crude oil storage tanks to the port's VLCC loading facility, allowing shippers to reduce their transportation costs by being able to load crude directly onto VLCC vessels.

The port will support the product flows between two terminals via its manifolds and interconnectivity lines, Heijboer said. "This is another huge advance for oil traders, allowing them direct trades within the vast Fujairah storage network and resulting in significant cost savings."

Throughput was 79 million mt in 2020 plus another 11 million mt of inter-terminal transfers, with the number of vessel calls at 4,240.