Falling debris from an intercepted drone caused a major fire at the United Arab Emirates oil-trading hub of Fujairah, the latest in a series of incidents to affect energy facilities in the Middle East.
Civil defense units are working to bring the blaze under control, the Fujairah Media Office said in a post on X. Another fire was reported in the area earlier Tuesday, while operations at a major storage terminal and an oil refinery were suspended a day earlier.
Oil and European natural gas prices have spiked as the war in the Middle East spreads. Saudi Arabia’s biggest refinery and the world’s largest liquefied natural gas export plant in Qatar halted operations after drone attacks and shipping traffic through the crucial Strait of Hormuz has slowed to a trickle, following hostilities that started over the weekend when the U.S. and Israel attacked Iran and Tehran retaliated by firing projectiles across the region.
Fujairah is a critical bunkering port and one of the largest oil storage and trading centers in the Middle East. It holds strategic importance for United Arab Emirates with its location outside the Strait of Hormuz.
With a pipeline linking storage tanks in the area to Abu Dhabi’s oil fields, Fujairah also serves as a crucial alternative export route for the UAE. Still, the pipeline doesn’t have enough capacity to fully replace all of the emirate’s oil flows through the Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz.