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and 2 (OT1/2), the recently completed Abu Dhabi Crude Oil Pipeline (ADCOP), private tank storage, all part of the expansion of the Fujairah refinery. As part of the on-going development of the port and its facilities, OT1 was commissioned in January 2006 and today has a throughput capacity of 15 million tonnes per year. Accommodating tankers of up 110,000 DWT, OT1 has three berths, a draft of 15 metres and eight 16-inch MLA loading arms. The Port of Fujairah’s second oil terminal was commissioned on June 2010 and is the larger of the two facilities. OT2 is currently home to four berths with a draft of 18 metres and is able to accommodate tankers of up to 180,000 DWT loaded, including very large crude carriers (VLCC). The terminal has a yearly throughput of 25 million tonnes, which is handled with a total of 32 loading arms comprised of four 16-inch MLA and four 12-inch MLA loading arms that are situated at each of its four berths. As the Port of Fujairah continues to evolve it has incorporated its own initiatives with further investments from external entities to drive the growth and development of the port and its facilities. The
recently completed ADCOP for example, is a strategically important project that will allow Abu Dhabi to export crude oil directly from Fujairah. Further benefits of the new pipeline are that it will reduce the reliance on Arabian Gulf oil terminals and ease shipping congestion through the Straits of Hormuz, cutting sailing times by as much as three days. The pipeline itself is 370 km long and 48 inches in diameter, starting at Habshan – the current collection point for Abu Dhabi’s onshore crude oil production – and runs through the emirates of Sharjah and Ras Al Khimah to the port of Fujairah. The pipeline will carry between one million and 1.5 million b/d per day and feed into an expandable storage facility before moving onto export through three subsea pipelines and three single point mooring buoys for deep water loading. The installation of the pipeline also incorporated the construction of supporting infrastructure including pumping stations, a main oil terminal with a storage capacity of eight million barrels (expandable to 12 million barrels) and offshore loading facilities at Fujairah. The project also included a dedicated approach to fire-fighting and prevention with some of the equipment present on ADCOP representing the most up-to-date fire fighting equipment in the world, being deployed for the first time on this pipeline.