Abu Dhabi: Abu Dhabi has shipped at least four crude cargoes from Fujairah to test a new oil pipeline to the neighbouring emirate that is outside the Arabian Gulf and Strait of Hormuz maritime chokepoint.
State-owned Abu Dhabi National Tanker Co. & National Gas Shipping Co. handled three lots, which were initial shipments made to clean out the pipeline and test offshore loading buoys, Mohammad Al Ali, fleet manager at the shipping company, told reporters on Monday at a conference in Dubai.
The emirate exported its first crude cargo through the link in July, a shipment of 500,000 barrels to the Pak Arab Refinery Ltd., a joint venture in Pakistan between that country’s government and an Abu Dhabi investment fund.
Abu Dhabi built the overland export link to bypass Hormuz, a passage for a fifth of the world’s traded oil. Iran has threatened to block the strait in retaliation for economic sanctions targeting its nuclear programme. Adnatco-Ngsco, as the shipper is known, is owned by state producer Abu Dhabi National Oil Co. (Adnoc) and transports liquefied natural gas and refined products.
Adnatco-Ngsco’s consignments from the port of Fujairah were test cargoes to Adnoc’s refinery at Ruwais in the Gulf, Al Ali said. He said he didn’t know of any additional exports from Fujairah. Abu Dhabi’s crude customers typically provide their own tankers instead of using vessels belonging to Adnatco-Ngsco.
The pipeline can transport 1.5 million barrels a day of Murban crude from Habshan, a collection point for Abu Dhabi’s onshore oil fields, across the desert and mountains to Fujairah on UAE’s Gulf of Oman coast.
