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Pipeline Skirting Straits Of Hormuz Opens By June

BW Online Bureau Nov 08, 2014

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?><root available-locales="en_US," default-locale="en_US"><static-content language-id="en_US"><![CDATA[A UAE pipeline to export oil from its east coast terminals, avoiding the Iran-threatened Straits of Hormuz will be made operational by June, the country's oil minister said. "The pipeline is almost complete. It will be operational by May or June," Mohammed bin Dha'en Al Hamili, the UAE energy minister told reporters. The new crude oil pipeline that will bypass the strategically sensitive Strait of Hormuz is almost finished, Al Hamili was quoted as saying by the Khaleej Times on the sidelines of World Petroleum Congress in Doha. The Abu Dhabi Crude Oil Pipeline project aims to ship crude from the UAE's main oil producing region to the port of Fujairah on the country's Gulf of Oman coast. That would allow some of the OPEC member's oil to avoid the Strait of Hormuz, access to which is shared by Iran and Oman. The minister's comments come in wake of threats by Tehran to close the strategic waterway at the entrance of the Gulf, if the US and west presses ahead with a threatened embargo on its oil exports. Al Hamili also said that UAE's decision to go in for a nuclear plant to be commissioned in 2017 would allow for greater hydrocarbon exports in the future. (PTI)