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Hong Kong-listed bunker supplier Brightoil Petroleum and China International United Petroleum & Chemical Corp. (Unipec) are looking to lease oil storage capacity at the port of Fujairah, Wall Street Journal reports.

According to the US daily, both companies have been 'in various stages of discussions' with Singapore-headquartered oil trading firm Concord Energy Pte Ltd. to lease oil storage at a 1.135 million cubic meter terminal in Fujairah, which is due to be completed in 2013.

It is thought that Unipec, the trading unit of China Petroleum & Chemical Corporation (Sinopec Corp), is seeking to line up oil storage for its planned joint venture refinery in Yanbu, Saudi Arabia. Last month Sinopec signed an initial agreement with state-owned oil firm Saudi Aramco to jointly develop a 400,000-barrels per day refining facility at the Red Sea port, which is expected to come onstream in 2014.

Sinopec's presence in the fuel oil market has increased over the last 12 months following the announcement in March 2010 that the oil giant was aiming to increase its market share of fuel oil.

As a result, Southernpec (Singapore) Pte Ltd., the Singapore-based bunkering arm of China's Southern Petrochemical Co. Ltd. (Southernpec) - an affiliate of Sinopec Corp - became an accredited bunker supplier in Singapore in August 2010.

In June 2010, Sinopec also launched Sinopec Fuel Oil Sales Corp., a new sales and marketing arm which is responsible for selling fuel oil production and bunker fuel in the growing Chinese bunker market.

Another Sinopec affiliate - Sinopec (HK) - is also trading fuel oil cargoes in the Singapore market.

Meanwhile, Brightoil Petroleum's entry into the Fujairah bunker market would mean that the energy firm would have a foothold in all three of the world's leading bunker ports - Singapore, Fujairah and Rotterdam. The company also has marine bunkering operations in other major ports, including Shenzhen, Shanghai, Ningbo, Zhoushan, Hong Kong and Malaysia and has been stepping up its fuel oil trading operations over the past 12 months.

Another Chinese company eyeing oil storage in Fujairah is PetroChina. The oil giant is said to be looking to construct up to 1 million cubic meters of storage capacity for refined oil products at the port of Fujairah.

Last month PetroChina was reported to be in talks with the government of Fujairah about building storage at the Middle East hub. Vopak Horizon Fujairah has also been mentioned as a potential joint venture partner.

However, it is not the first time that the company has been linked with Fujairah. In January 2010, a Middle East-based trader was reported to have been approached by PetroChina to discuss the economic feasibility of developing a terminal in the UAE, which Petrochina had already been studying for approximately a year.

Also in 2010, PetroChina launched an energy trading desk in Dubai, following in the footsteps of other international oil firms to have set up trading outposts in the UAE.

The launch of the energy desk and the company's plans to establish storage capacity in the UAE are linked to the recently built crude oil pipeline running from Abu Dhabi to Fujairah, which will allow the world's third largest oil exporter to send approximately 60 percent of its crude exports to Fujairah, thus bypassing the Strait of Hormuz.