Vopak is building five crude oil storage tanks with total capacity of 478,000 cu m at the port of Fujairah and may eventually expand that number, executives from the world's largest independent storage tank operator said on Thursday.

Netherlands-based Vopak already has a partnership with Horizon Terminals, the government of the emirate of Fujairah and Kuwait's Independent Petroleum Group at the port, which lies outside the Strait of Hormuz on the east coast of the United Arab Emirates.

"We didn't start this project to only keep it at five tanks - we hope in future to expand it," Cees De Greve, general manager of Vopak Horizon Fujairah, told Reuters on the sidelines of a ceremony at the port.

"There is a lot of land so we want to grow. We are also looking around to see what the companies around us are doing, and we've seen opportunity for crude storage in Fujairah."

The five tanks, which are due to become operational by June, would take total storage capacity of the joint venture to 2.6 million cu m from around 2.1 million cu m now; all the current capacity is for refined oil products.

"There are a lot of players who have equity crude here in the region and are producing or buying crude and need to sell it in the global market," said Frank Erkelens, regional president of Vopak. "So demand for crude storage is likely to happen."

The current expansion phase, known as Black Pearl, will also see the construction of a VLCC jetty for the supertankers to dock in Fujairah.

There are two major storage hubs and ports in the region that are just outside the Strait of Hormuz: Fujairah, and the port of Sohar in non-Opec oil producer Oman. – Reuters