Iran’s drone attacks on the Port of Salalah, which set ablaze oil tanks, and an earlier hit on the UAE’s Fujairah Port, strike a broader pattern of targeting alternative routes to the Strait of Hormuz, which remains unofficially closed.
For decades, Fujairah and Salalah were earmarked for development to reduce dependence on the Strait of Hormuz.
Salalah, on Oman's southern Arabian Sea coast, is a critical port infrastructure hub. It has become an increasingly important hub for tankers seeking to bypass the Strait of Hormuz.
Multiple Iranian Shahed-136 drones struck the port's oil storage facilities on Thursday, hitting the Mina Petroleum Facility with at least one direct hit, causing a massive explosion and fire surrounding multiple fuel tanks.
Operations at the port have been partially suspended. Iran, which enjoyed close political relations with Oman before the war, has denied targeting Salalah.
Meanwhile, Fujairah's strategic role as a bunkering hub emerged from the Iran–Iraq War in the 1980s, when the strait was mined and tankers were targeted.
The UAE later built the Habshan–Fujairah pipeline with a maximum capacity of around 2 million barrels per day, to export oil should the Strait of Hormuz shut down.
The Fujairah Oil Industry Zone today holds almost 70 million barrels of oil product storage capacity across 15 major tank farms, operated by Vopak, VTTI, MENA, GPS, JSW and others, making it the world's second-largest bunkering hub.
Abu Dhabi National Oil Company is also building the world's largest underground oil storage facility in Fujairah, adding a further 42 million barrels of capacity.
On March 3, falling debris from a drone interception caused a fire at the Fujairah Oil Terminal. JSW Infrastructure confirmed one of its 15 storage tanks at the Fujairah Liquid Terminal sustained damage, with a cumulative capacity of 465,000 cubic metres, equivalent to nearly 3 million barrels of oil.
Storage operators, including Vopak, VTTI, MENA and GPS, had already suspended operations and restricted staff access before the strike happened.
But the consequences of any disruption extend well beyond oil.
Fujairah is the UAE's only Indian Ocean gateway and remains a critical hub for eastbound container ships from Asia, connecting to the Gulf's internal distribution network, which is supported by rail and road.
The port handled 26.4 million tonnes of general cargo volumes in 2025 and serves as a hub for East-West shipping links to the Indian subcontinent, the Red Sea, and East Africa.
Meanwhile, Oman, which transformed Salalah from a modest fishing port into a major regional trade hub, is now integral to the Gulf's food security architecture.
Both Salalah and Fujairah host grain terminals that serve as critical intake points for food shipments destined for landlocked Gulf states and bypassing the Strait of Hormuz entirely.
Salalah's agricultural bulk terminal can store 60,000 tonnes of grain and discharge 15,000 metric tonnes per day. Fujairah operates 20 silos with roughly 300,000 tonnes of storage capacity, handling wheat, barley and corn from four continents.
