DUBAI, March 16 (Reuters) – Oil loading operations have been suspended at the United Arab Emirates port of Fujairah, two sources told Reuters on Monday, after a drone attack sparked a fire in the emirate’s petroleum industrial zone.
Fujairah, located on the Gulf of Oman just outside the Strait of Hormuz, is typically a critical exit point for about 1 million barrels per day of the UAE’s Murban crude – a volume equivalent to roughly 1% of global demand.
Civil defense teams are currently working to control the blaze, the Fujairah government media office said in a statement, adding that no casualties have been reported.
The suspension marks the second major disruption at the vital bunkering hub in recent days. Operations at Fujairah had resumed on Sunday following a separate drone strike over the weekend.
The attacks come as the ongoing U.S.-Israeli war with Iran strangles shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, a narrow waterway between Iran and Oman that normally handles a fifth of the world’s oil supply.
(Reporting by Yousef Saba and Maha El Dahan, Additional reporting by Nayera Abdallah, Writing by Yousef Saba, Editing by Bernadette Baum and Jan Harvey)
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