Cyclone Gonu weakens to a storm on way to Iran

Dubai, June 7: Cyclone Gonu waned into a storm as it passed into a major oil shipping route towards Iran today, but killed 12 people in Oman and halted the country's oil and gas exports for a third day.

Gonu, which peaked as a maximum-force Category Five hurricane on Tuesday and faded to a Category One hurricane yesterday is now an ordinary tropical storm, experts said.

The storm's maximum sustained wind speed is now about 45 miles per hour, the US military's Joint Typhoon Warning Center said, and it was likely to keep dissipating.

''As far as Oman is concerned it is over. Cyclone Gonu passed into the Gulf of Oman and is heading toward Iran but it is no longer a tropical cyclone,'' said Ahmad al-Harthi, head of Oman's meteorological department.

''It caused a lot of havoc in terms of high seas, rain, winds and floods in combination.'' A relief official said 12 people had been confirmed killed by the storm which turned the streets of the capital Muscat into rivers, upturning cars and severing electricity and phone lines.

Relief efforts were still underway as the weather calmed but one shipper in Oman said Mina al Fahal, the only terminal for the country's 650,000 barrels per day crude exports, remained closed for a third day and the main liquefied natural gas terminal at Sur was unlikely to be operating either.

''Mina al Fahal is still closed until further notice and they will not give us any more information. They are currently trying to assess the damage at Port Qaboos,'' the shipper told Reuters, referring to a main cargo port.

''We have not been able to get in touch (with the LNG terminal) but apparently that area was badly hit so it is unlikely to open now.'' Further north, the United Arab Emirates' port of Fujairah, one of the world's largest ship refuelling centres, reopened today morning after closing yesterday due to the weather.

Port director Moussa Murad said the port facilities had sustained no damages from high waves caused by the storm.

HIGH WAVES

Oman state television showed streets filled with water and silt.

All private and public sector institutions, including the stock exchange, were closed until Sunday due to the storm.

But Oman's central bank governor Hamood Sangour al-Zadjali said it would not have a major impact on the economy.

Waves pounded the east coast of the UAE, forcing some people to leave their homes and guests to leave beach resorts for more sheltered areas yesterday.

Shipping and port sources said yesterday that operations had continued without disruption through the narrow Strait of Hormuz, a major channel for oil shipments from the Gulf, source of a third of the world's sea-borne oil supplies.

A senior Iranian oil official said yesterday the storm was not expected to disrupt supplies from OPEC's number two exporter as its main terminals were inside the Gulf waterway.

Saudi Aramco, the world's largest oil company by output, said the storm was too far away to affect its facilities and its tankers were made to withstand high seas. Abu Dhabi's ADNOC said it would not be affected either.

Oman's weather centre, which has been keeping records since 1890, says Gonu could be the strongest storm to reach Oman's coast since 1977 though meteorologists say milder tropical storms are common in the region from mid-May to the end of June.

Iranian state television said waves had reached six metres high.

REUTERS

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