UAE Oil Trade: Activity Uptick, Or Exodus?

17 Apr 2026 Issue: 69 / 16

Activity at the UAE’s Hamriyah and Fujairah trading hubs has picked up over the past two weeks, but market participants are unsure whether this signals a return to normal operations or simply a clearout of inventories.

The US-Israel war with Iran and the subsequent closure of the Strait of Hormuz have garnered global attention for triggering the biggest energy crisis in recent history (MEES, 17 April), but the impact on the region’s role as an oil products trading hub has gone underreported. Since the outbreak of war on 28 February, activity at major storage and trading centers in Fujairah, Jebel Ali, Hamriyah, and Sohar has declined sharply.

For the UAE’s Jebel Ali and Hamriyah, the issue was geography. Neither port was damaged by Iranian attacks (except for a small fire caused by debris at Jebel Ali), but locked inside the Strait of Hormuz, activity quickly ground to a halt. This is beginning to change. Market participants point to a significant selloff at the port of Hamriyah, which is known to have handled Iranian refined products, particularly naphtha and gasoil (MEES, 6 June 2025). (CONTINUED - 852 WORDS)