Egypt clears Fujairah’s Mediterranean oil zone

Fujairah is building a Mediterranean oil foothold: The Egyptian government has approved the establishment of a private freezone for Fujairah Alamein Oil and Gas Company next to Al Hamra oil terminal in New Alamein, according to a cabinet decree (here, pdf and here, pdf). The 738k sqm zone will store and handle crude oil and petroleum products.

Terms and conditions: The decree requires the company to export the equivalent of 100% of its annual output and maintain a local-content ratio of at least 50%.

The zone is the commercial base for a wider Egypt-Fujairah buildout. The UAE’s Fujairah started working on its USD 3 bn oil logistics zone at Al Hamra port last October, following three agreements signed by the Egypt’s Oil Ministry and the Emirate of Fujairah, including establishing a joint-stock company for a logistics zone in El Alamein, storing crude at Al Alamein’s Hamra port, and supplying petroleum products to the Egyptian General Petroleum Corporation (EGPC).

Al Hamra is already open to third-party barrels: The terminal began storing and handling crude for external customers earlier this year, with Fujairah and state-owned operator Wepco targeting a USD 457 mn expansion to increase crude storage to 5.3 mn barrels by December — with a target of 20 mn barrels by 2030. Al Hamra handled 74 mn barrels in FY 2024/25.

Think of Al Hamra as the infrastructure backbone, and the freezone as the new commercial layer attached to it. The Egyptian-operated port provides the marine facilities, tanks, and pipeline connections, while the adjacent Fujairah-backed zone provides a dedicated space and regulatory incentives for storage, handling, and export operations.

The business lens: The UAE buying into Egypt’s gateways

UAE port operators are steadily building positions across Egyptian energy infrastructure. Fujairah International Oil and Gas Corporation was in talks with EGPC in June to lease crude and petroleum-product storage on Egypt’s Red Sea coast. This is the second time in the past few months that an Emirati entity has made a move like this — AD Ports made a similar pitch for Red Sea storage in April. In March, Egypt put up 10 storage facilities for lease at Ain Sokhna and Ras Badran to monetize spare capacity. The country has around 29 mn barrels of spare storage across its main ports.

The resilience lens: A Mediterranean hedge

The location is the real asset: Fujairah became a major oil hub because it sits outside Hormuz. Al Hamra gives Fujairah-linked operators another foothold on the Mediterranean, beyond both Hormuz and Bab Al Mandab. As the agreement predates the current disruptions — so this should not be presented as a direct wartime response — the buildout creates precisely the kind of geographical redundancy: barrels can be stored, blended, traded, or delivered from a coast that does not require passage through either chokepoint.

The systems lens: The port becomes the network

Al Hamra is becoming more than a storage terminal: An existing pipeline carries crude from the port to the Midor refinery in Alexandria, while Egypt is preparing another line that will move refined products in the opposite direction for storage and export. Connecting the freezone, terminal, refinery, and the pipeline network would give the Mediterranean site a full operating system: crude comes in, storage absorbs it, Midor processes it, and products can return to Al Hamra for export.