---

United Arab Emirates-based Gulf Petrochem FZC is planning to expand its operations into the South East Asian market by establishing a trading and bunkering desk in Singapore, Reuters reports.

Speaking on the sidelines of the Asia Pacific Petroleum Conference, Gulf Petrochem's Chief Executive, Sanjeev Sisaudia, said the new operation would be launched before the end of this year as part of its strategy to expand its business in Asia.

"We will start fuel oil and distillates trading as well as bunkering out of Singapore," Sisaudia said.

"At the moment we have six people in Singapore mainly dealing with base oil. We're looking to hire 3-4 people until the end of the year," commented Sisaudia, adding that the company will be looking to further expand its team in 2012.

Established in 1998, Gulf Petrochem was founded by Ashok Goel and Sudhir Goyel, who arrived in the UAE from India to exploit the potential of exporting petroleum-based oils and lubricants back to India and, in just over 10 years, created a $100 million turnover company.

Gulf Petrochem established a re-refinery in Sharjah's Hamriyah Free Zone in 1998, which enabled it to enter into oil production. Then, in 2008, the company commissioned a condensate splitter at Hamriyah Free Zone with distillation columns capable of handling a large spectrum of petroleum-based feedstock.

In addition to oil refining and oil trading, Gulf Petrochem is also involved in the manufacture and supply of high quality grease products and lubricating oils.

Gulf Petrochem has also begun construction of a storage terminal facility at the port of Fujairah, which, once completed, will enable the company to provide independent storage services for its liquid petroleum products and for customers.

The facility will comprise 17 tanks with a total capacity of 412,000 cubic metres (cbm). The first phase is due to be commissioned in the second quarter of 2012 and subsequent phases will take the full capacity to 1.2 million cbm.

The terminal will feature dock pipeline connectivity to the Port of Fujairah, a pigging system for all dock pipelines, operational flexibility to handle Class A, B, C products in all tanks, a road tanker unloading and loading facility and will be built to NFPA standards.

Last month Gulf Petrochem, which is not a regular participant in Asian fuel oil spot tenders, won a semi-term fuel oil tender from India in early August.

Trader Kalrav Dixit is quoted as saying that the deal was a "strategic move". The former Chemoil trader, who is understood to have been instrumental in securing the deal added: "The idea was to position ourselves in the market."