The Oman Tank Terminal Company (OTTCO) is building a storage project with a 25m barrel capacity at Ras Markaz to be opened in 2019, reported Arabian Business. The project comes at a time when current oil storage facility in Sohar is already full. OTTCO’s Project Director, Said Al-Maawali said that the company plans to expand the capacity in the future to as much as 200m barrels, according to Trade Arabia.

OTTCO had already launched a floating storehouse, utilizing an oil supertanker with 2.1m barrels of space, itself the first step towards marketing the Ras Markaz project. The storage tanks will help Oman trade with crude oil futures on the Dubai Mercantile Exchange (DME) by making more oil available for delivery against the futures contracts.

Al-Maawali said OTTCO was also considering adding another vessel until the on-land tanks were completed. He made the remarks at the Platts Oil Storage Conference in Amsterdam.