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Mawani Invests $170M in Expansion at Jeddah Islamic Port

Jeddah
Jeddah Islamic Port (File image courtesy Mateusz War / CC BY SA 3.0)

Published Oct 10, 2022 11:48 PM by The Maritime Executive

Authorities in Saudi Arabia hope to enhance the competitiveness of the Jeddah Islamic Port by awarding two contracts worth $171 million to deepen and build new berths at the facility.

The Saudi Ports Authority (Mawani) said that as part of initiatives to accelerate growth in the maritime transport and logistics industry, it has signed two contracts with PC Marine Services and Modern Building Leaders (MBL) to deepen and build new berths at the port. MBL is working in consortium with HutaHegerfeld Saudia Ltd.

The projects are aimed at enabling the port to receive larger vessels with a capacity of up to 24,000 TEU in order to meet local market demand and position Jeddah Islamic port as a logistics hub. It is also aimed at attracting global shipping lines and strengthening the Saudi Arabia's food security by improving commodity imports.  

PC Marine will build new berths measuring 16 meters deep and 1,100 meters long at the multi-cargo terminals to receive large bulk grain carriers, accommodate larger vessels and secure the nation's grain supply.

The MBL consortium will deepen the harbor approach channels, turning basins, waterways and the South Terminal basin. The upgrades will enable the arrival of giant boxships of up to 24,000 TEU and enhance the port’s competitiveness.

Jeddah Islamic Port, which was ranked at position eight in the 2021 World Bank’s Container Port Performance Index, is located along busy global shipping lines connecting three continents making it the Red Sea's top port for transit trade and transshipment of container and cargo.

With four terminals and 62 berths, the port receives around 5,000 vessels of all kinds every year. In 2021, the port’s container throughput stood at five million TEU.

In September, Mawani awarded contracts worth $240 million to public and private companies to establish a new integrated logistics park at the port, including the development of infrastructure and setting up a new port management system. It also signed a $4.7 million contract for expansion work at the port’s Gate 9 in order to more than double the daily movement of trucks in and out of the facility.