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Debris from a drone interception sparked a fire at an oil industry zone in the UAE’s Fujairah on 3 March, which was contained by authorities, as Iran continues its Gulf retaliation campaign.

“Relevant authorities in the Emirate of Fujairah responded to a fire that broke out this morning in the Fujairah Oil Industry Zone (FOIZ), resulting from falling debris following the successful interception of a drone by air defence systems,” the Fujairah Media Office said.

“No injuries were reported, the fire was brought under control, and normal operations in the area have resumed,” it added in its statement.

Fujairah benefits from its strategic geopolitical location, being the only emirate in the UAE to be situated along the Indian Ocean, and sits outside the Strait of Hormuz, which Iran has blockaded in its ongoing conflict with Israel and the US, choking about a fifth of the world’s oil and gas supplies.

Major midstream oil and gas companies operate key storage and export hubs for oil and refined products in Fujairah, including Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (Adnoc Group), Saudi Aramco – through its subsidiary Aramco Trading, Vopak Horizon, VTTI, Shell, Fujairah Oil Terminal, Brooge Petroleum & Gas Investment Company (BPGIC), Emirates National Oil Company (Enoc), Ecomar, Mount Row and GPS Chemoil.

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Fujairah is crucial to the business of Adnoc Group subsidiary Adnoc Onshore, which operates a main oil terminal (MOT) in Fujairah, located approximately 300 kilometres north of Abu Dhabi, which facilitates the export and import of various types of crude oil produced by Adnoc, particularly the Murban grade, from its onshore and offshore fields.

Separately, the Abu Dhabi Crude Oil Pipeline (Adcop) connects milestone pole (MP) 21 at the Habshan oil facility in Abu Dhabi, where stabilised crude produced from Adnoc Onshore fields is gathered for dispatch, to the Fujairah MOT.

BPGIC is an oil storage and services firm that was established in 2013 in Fujairah, and started operations with a capacity of 400,000 cubic metres spanning 14 tanks. In March 2022, it announced its intention to increase the storage capacity of four of those storage tanks in the first phase complex.

Separately, in September 2021, BPGIC began operations at the second phase of its Fujairah oil storage complex, adding 600,000 cubic metres of storage capacity across eight tanks. As a result of that expansion, BPGIC’s storage capacity more than doubled to 1 million cubic metres, or 6.3 million barrels, from 400,000 cubic metres.

BPGIC then undertook a third expansion phase of its oil storage facility, which is understood to have been commissioned in 2023.

The third phase increased BPGIC’s oil storage capacity by 3.5 times, raising it to 3.5 million cubic metres, or 22 million barrels, and making the firm the largest oil storage services provider in the UAE emirate of Fujairah.

The third-phase expansion project consists of an oil storage facility with a capacity of 2.5 million cubic metres, a modular 25,000-barrel-a-day (b/d) refinery, and a larger 180,000-b/d conventional refinery.

BPGIC also co-owns a topping refinery in Fujairah with Nigeria-based Sahara Energy Resources, which produces low-sulphur bunker fuel for ships and vessels. It is understood that the new naphtha upgradation unit could be integrated with the existing topping refinery unit.

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