The 82,000 barrels per day refinery has been mothballed but a government official said last month it could be restarted once it was sold.

The plant has been shut since March 2003 due to poor refinery margins. Production had previously been interrupted from 1998 to 2000 after the plant"s former owner, Metro Oil Corp, went bankrupt.

Fujairah, on the Gulf of Oman just outside the shipping chokepoint of the Strait of Hormuz, is one of the world"s largest ship refueling centers. Around 20 percent of global daily crude supply passes through the Strait.

The UAE is planning to build a large new refinery in Fujairah, with capacity of around 500,000 bpd. It is also planning to build a 1.5 million bpd pipeline that will allow the UAE to export more than half of its crude exports from Fujairah, by-passing the Strait.

PIN/IRANOILGAS.COM