---

Oil trading firm Gulf Petrochem has agreed to sell a 12 percent stake in its new oil storage facility to the government of Fujairah, Reuters reports.

Under the agreement, Fujairah Petroleum Company (FPC), a subsidiary of Fujairah government, will invest an unconfirmed amount in the terminal project, which is due to be completed in September 2012, approximately five months after the originally scheduled date.

Gulf Petrochem's new terminal entered the construction phase in October 2010 and was originally expected to take around 17 months to complete. The facility will have an initial capacity of around 412,000 cubic metres (cbm), however, it is planned for the terminal to reach an ultimate capacity of over 1 million cubic metres.

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, including all support systems such as OWS, ETP and compressor station.

In September 2011, Gulf Petrochem said that it had already constructed nine of the total planned 17 tanks. Once completed, the new terminal will enable Gulf Petrochem to provide independent storage services for its liquid petroleum products and for customers at one of the world's leading bunkering ports.

Last week, Sanjeev Sisaudia, the group's chief executive was quoted as saying that Gulf Petrochem's trading division was set to lease one third of the terminal's total tank capacity.