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Fresh from finalising its next investment in Morocco earlier this week, CMA CGM is set to further expand its global portfolio after signing a joint-venture to develop a new terminal in Saudi Arabia’s Red Sea port of Jeddah.
At the Future Investment Initiative event in Riyadh this week, the French carrier’s port operating subsidiary, CMA Terminals, signed a term sheet for a potential JV with Saudi port operator Red Sea Terminal Gateway (RSTG).
The JV would operate as a sub-concessionaire under RSGT’s existing concession, to operate its Jeddah facility with Saudi national port authority Mawani, which includes a commitment to build and develop Jeddah’s Terminal 4.
Terminal 4 is expected to cost $450m to build and equip and will offer an annual capacity of 2.6m teu, taking the port’s overall capacity up to 8.8m teu.
“This term sheet reflects a shared intent to bring additional capacity, reliability, and technology to Jeddah Islamic Port,” said Jens Floe, group CEO of RSGT.
“By structuring a sub-concession under our framework with Mawani, and bringing CMA CGM to consolidate volumes on T4, we can accelerate upgrades and service enhancements while maintaining continuity and high standards across the terminal.”
According to the Xeneta-owned eeSea liner database, Jeddah currently hosts seven services in which CMA CGM is involved. The majority of those already call at RSGT’s Jeddah facility, with two – the intra-regional India-Middle East GULFEMIR service, on which it charters slots from vessel providers Wan Hai, ONE, X-press Feeders and Unifeeder, and the Red Sea NRX feeder service, with Folk Maritime.
It has also been one of the few deepsea container lines that have continued to use the Suez Canal, with its Asia-Mediterranean BEX service – marketed as the MED5 by the Ocean Alliance, of which CMA CGM is a leading member. It is the sole Asia-Europe service that has not diverted to Cape of Good Hope routings following Houthi attacks on shipping in the region.
The Red Sea crisis has probably had a greater effect on Jeddah than any other port – its throughput volumes hit a peak in 2022 of just under 5m teu. That declined to 1.9m teu in 2023 but grew to 3m teu last year, according to eeSea data.
Rodolphe Saadé, CMA CGM chairman and CEO, said: “I am pleased to announce this partnership with RSGT, which represents a new step in the development of Jeddah Islamic Port and supports Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030.
“By combining CMA CGM’s global expertise with RSGT’s local strength, we will contribute to making Jeddah a key logistics gateway on the Red Sea.”
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