Cyclone Gonu Oman Oil Facilities

ArabianBusiness.com - June 8th

Gonu peaked as a maximum-force Category Five hurricane on Tuesday and faded to a Category One hurricane on Wednesday. Apart from the 32 dead, at least 30 people were missing, Omani news agency said.

Further north to Oman's east coast, the United Arab Emirates' port of Fujairah, one of the world's largest ship refuelling centres, said 11 sailors were rescued after their boat sank in regional Omani waters on Wednesday.

Port Director Moussa Murad said there were 10 sailors missing from the same boat. The rescued sailors were nine Indians, a Sudanese and one Eritrean. The port reopened on Thursday after it closed on Wednesday.

Three people were killed in southern Iran on Thursday while people within 300 metres (yards) of the coast in Hormozgan province had been evacuated, Iran state television said.

State media said roads and houses in Iran's southeastern province of Sistan-Baluchestan had been damaged and many coastal areas were cut off by flooding.

Oman's only 650,000 barrel per day oil terminal Minal al Fahal resumed operations after a three-day closure. Oman carried out tests on pipelines in the terminal before it resumed operations.

Petroleum Development Oman said on Thursday that operations and facilities had escaped damage.

PDO, a majority state-owned firm, produces most of Oman's crude. PDO expects its output to decline by around 20,000 bpd this year to between 560,000 and 570,000.

The storm had raised fears of a disruption to exports from the Middle East, which pumps over a quarter of the world's oil, pushing prices to around $71 a barrel on Thursday.

The main liquefied natural gas terminal at Sur, which was badly hit, was not operating either, a shipper said. Sur terminal handles 10 million tonnes per year of such gas.

Sohar refinery and port reopened and these facilities were working as well as before the storm, the company said.