News / Supply chains go multimodal as Gulf ports expand truck facilities

The Middle East crisis has reshaped supply chain ecosystems as container carriers, facing port suspensions or restrictions across the conflict region, switched to multimodal logistics solutions, with trucking taking centre stage for the last-mile leg.

To handle the massive overland demand, several Gulf ports — now vital to supply chains — are rapidly investing in new marshalling yards to handle the growing number of truckloads.

For example, Gulftainer, which operates the Khorfakkan Container Terminal in the UAE, has just opened a 45-acre yard, close to the harbour to accommodate up to 1,800 trucks.

The additional yard infrastructure was critical, as daily truck movements out of Khorfakkan are up to some 5,000 a day, from the pre-crisis level of just 100 trucks entering the port each day.

“Waiting times are down,” said Farid Belbouab, group CEO at Gultainer. “The system is stabilising.”

Khorfakkan has significant capacity, some 5m teu annually, while Fujairah at some 700,000 teu, and Sohar (Oman), featuring a 1.5m teu terminal, have infrastructure/equipment limitations to handle sizeable unexpected volumes.

Saudi Arabia’s Jeddah Port is also building a large trucking staging facility of around 1m sq metres, estimated to be able to handle up to 40,000 trucks a day.

The move is aimed at reducing port gate congestion and shortening truck wait times, as overland volume levels rapidly rise.  The project will be jointly handled by Saudi’s General Authority for Roads, Riyadh-based Elm and  the Roshn group, according to updates.

With operations at Jebel Ali facing disruption, container imports into the Gulf are now mostly flowing via the five alternative gateways of Khorfakkan, Fujairah, Sohar, Salalah, and Jeddah.

Persian Gulf authorities have marshalled collaborative logistics support to cope with the trade challenges.  A strategic agreement between Gultainer and Saudi Ports Authority (Mawani) was quickly set up to open a direct sea-land trade corridor, enabling cross-border freight flow between Sharjah and Dammam.

That complemented a ‘green corridor’ arrangement by customs authorities of Dubai and Oman to overcome the supply chain hurdles.

Meanwhile, NVOs have also entered the altered Middle East trade race with their vessel-operating partners.

Global cargo consolidator ECU Worldwide has begun offering a direct shipping product from India’s Nhava Sheva (JNPA) to Jeddah in Saudi Arabia.

“With integrated inland connectivity to Riyadh and Dammam, cargo moves forward with ease beyond the port,” said ECU, a subsidiary of Mumbai-based Allcargo Group. “This enables quicker transitions, better co-ordination and a consistent flow across the region.”

With no immediate fix in sight to the Middle East disruption, it is expected that the shift towards multimodal-based integrated logistics ecosystems for trades through the region will continue to gain ground.