The port's third refinery was started in April 2020, a 15,000 b/d plant owned by Ecomar Energy Solutions. Its capacity has since been expanded to 20,000 b/d, with plans to hit 60,000 b/d by 2023.
"We see the future as looking pretty good," Ecomar's trading director Leigh Shaddick said in an interview. "We are able to be nimbler than the big oil companies. The UAE has done a fantastic job managing Covid-19. The Port of Fujairah has done a great job. The infrastructure is there and there have been no delays in vessels coming in or leaving the port."
The entire Middle East will be in recovery mode for most of 2021, with Fujairah's prospects brightened somewhat by incremental trade of Murban crude delivered from Fujairah with the launch of ICE Futures Abu Dhabi, according to Iman Nasseri, the Middle East managing director for Facts Global Energy.
"With Fujairah port throughput already recovered, there may be some more business in 2021 in terms of port activity but not much," he said, adding that average trading of petroleum products in the Middle East will be about 7 million b/d in 2021, compared with about 6.5 million b/d in the third quarter of 2020 and well below the peak of about 7.5 million b/d in Q3 2019.
“It won't be until 2022 when average Middle East trading exceeds the 2019 peak, and reach about 8.5 million b/d by 2023 or 2024 as giant refineries in Saudi Arabia, Iraq, UAE and Oman start up,” he said.
"These 1 million plus b/d of additional products trade could potentially boost Fujairah business due to both incremental bunker demand as well as storage and trade activities," he said.
Meanwhile, stockpiles of oil products at the UAE port of Fujairah jumped 6.7% in the week to Dec. 14 to their highest level since the end of August, the latest data from the Fujairah Oil Industry Zone shows.
The total stood at 24.639 million barrels, a rise of 1.550 million barrels from the previous week. They were last higher on Aug. 31, when 25.124 million barrels was stored at the port, according to the data provided exclusively to S&P Global Platts.
Heavy distillates including fuel for power generation and bunkers rose 11% to 11.327 million barrels, the data showed.