Abu Dhabi's International Petroleum Investment Co., or IPIC, will start pumping oil through a new pipeline that will avoid the narrow Strait of Hormuz in 2011, a senior company official said Wednesday. The 360-kilometer line, known as Abu Dhabi Crude Oil Pipeline, or Adcop, which will transport up to 1.5 million barrels a day of crude to Fujairah on the United Arab Emirates' east coast, will be operating by August 2011, Dieter Blauberg, the Adcop project director, said Wednesday. Abu Dhabi plans to build the pipeline to bypass the Strait, the 33-mile-wide channel through which Gulf oil producers ship their crude exports. The crude oil will be sourced from the onshore Habshan field in Abu Dhabi. The emirate pumps 95 percent of the crude in the UAE, which is the third-largest oil producer in the Gulf after Saudi Arabia and Iran. The Adcop, project will also involve building storage and terminal facilities for the crude export from Fujairah, which is surrounded by the Hajar mountain range. A refinery project at the site is also being considered by IPIC. However, Blauberg said plans for the Fujeirah refinery project are still in the early stages, with land reclamation set to finish by 2011. He wouldn't comment on whether the project would be delayed due to current market conditions.
