DP World spending $100m a month keeping dormant Jebel Ali port going

Throughput handling at crisis-hit Dubai port at about 10% of normal levels

DP WORLD is spending $100m a month keeping its crisis-hit flagship port of Jebel Ali up and running, as vessels avoid the UAE container gateway.

“There is hardly any activity as far as vessels are concerned,” DP World chief executive Yuvraj Narayan told Thursday’s first-half earnings call.

“But we still do approximately 4,000 containers a day through various alternate routes, whether they are through Fujairah, through Khor Fakkan, through Oman, through Jeddah land route… so alternatives have been worked out.”

Jebel Ali would normally handle 40,000 containers a day. Its current volumes represent about 10% of that, according to Narayan.

He said: “We have kept Jebel Ali in a full state of preparedness to be able to reopen and restart at 48 hours’ notice, and we intend to keep it that way.”

The UAE ports and terminals giant is building two new Fujairah terminals to bypass the Strait of Hormuz, which it expects will cost about $750m over the next 24-36 months.

The new terminals would be operational in about 24 months and increase the company’s total UAE container capacity by 2.5m teu, to 22m teu.

Narayan said DP World still expected to spend about $3bn in capex for 2026, and the new terminals didn’t change that. It expected net leverage would stay below 4x is annual earnings before ebitda.

DP World had about $8.2bn in liquidity available and could meet its upcoming debt maturities.

Its vast global logistics network helped it weather the costs of the lost volumes at Jebel Ali.

Revenue in 1H26 was up 13% year on year to $12.7bn, while pre-tax profit fell by 39% to $585m.

Global teu throughput fell by 5.7% year on year to 42.8m in 1H26. But excluding Jebel Ali, it was up 5.4% on a reported basis.

“While one important gateway is temporarily impacted, the underlying business continues to perform well,” CFO Anil Mohta said.

Revenue for DP World’s ports and terminals business rose by 4% year on year to $4.5bn, while logistics revenue was up by 24% to $5.9n in the first half. Marine services took in $2.3bn, up 7% year on year.