Oil loading resumes at UAE’s Fujairah port after an attack, sources say

DUBAI, March 16 (Reuters) – Oil loading operations have resumed at the United Arab Emirates port of Fujairah, two sources told Reuters on Monday, after it was halted earlier following a drone attack that triggered 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 were working to control the blaze, the Fujairah government media office said in a statement, adding that no casualties were reported.

The suspension of loading operations 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 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)