SAUDI Arabia’s major Red Sea container ports have borne the brunt of lines rerouting south with vessel traffic falling sharply since Houthi attacks in the region began late last year.
King Abdullah port, the Kingdom’s flagship transhipment hub and one of the world’s fastest-growing container facilities over the past decade, has witnessed the most significant impact.
Lloyd’s List Intelligence data shows that February vessel calls, both domestic and international, were recorded at just 14 compared with 76 in November last year, the month before box lines began their mass migration south around the Cape of Good Hope and when trade conditions in the region were relatively normal.
The drop in traffic by number, while already substantial, is even more drastic in terms of capacity calling KAP, which represented a fall of more than 90%.
Jeddah, Saudi Arabia’s largest container port, has also been the scene of a stark fall in containership calls since the Red Sea crisis began, albeit not quite to the same degree. Liner calls to its docks fell to 124 last month, compared with 218 in November. In terms of capacity this was a drop of nearly 70%, from more than 1.5m teu to just under 500,000 teu.
Both ports rely heavily on the ultra-large box tonnage serving the east-west trade using the Red Sea to and from the Suez Canal. Jeddah and KAP are often used as wayport calls for regional transhipment.
However, with carriers completely rerouting round Africa, services have been trimmed and Jeddah and KAP removed from many service rotations with Red Sea transhipment no longer feasible.
Although carriers have looked to ensure Red Sea coverage with shuttle services from the east Mediterranean through the Suez — and in the case of Hapag-Lloyd via an alternative land bridge across Saudi Arabia, the drop in regional traffic has been marked.
KAP, located nearly 100 km north of Jeddah, opened its docks in 2013 to exploit the ample transhipment opportunities provided by its strategic Red Sea location.
The port has steadily risen to prominence and just over a decade from its inception is handling around 3m teu annually. This has come largely from Mediterranean Shipping Company’s presence at the port. The liner giant was quick to realise the port’s potential, managing terminal operations through its group affiliate Terminal Investment Ltd on behalf of state-owned Saudi group Ports Development Co, using the port as its principal transhipment hub in the Red Sea.
Alongside MSC, 2M alliance partner Maersk also frequents the port as its other core customer, again mostly for transhipment gains.
With both carriers pulling services from the region and with it diverting its ultra-large tonnage, KAP has been hit hard.
According to shipping analyst Dynamar’s estimates, transhipment represents around 90% of KAP’s overall traffic with only minimal gateway cargoes.
Indeed, since the turn of the year the port has not welcomed a single ship with a capacity greater than 10,000 teu, according to Lloyd’s List Intelligence vessel-tracking data.
In December last year, a dozen ships above 10,000 teu called KAP, and across November under “normal” trading conditions as many as 35 berthed in the port. This included 15 box ships with a capacity above 18,000 teu.
The last 18,000+ teu ship to call KAP was the 19,224 teu MSC Oliver (IMO: 9703306) on December 21, according to Lloyd’s List Intelligence.
Such has been the tail-off in traffic in KAP so far this year, satellite imagery shows only a handful of days where vessels were visibly docked last month.
Jeddah is not as reliant as KAP on transhipment cargoes, but hub-and-spoke services still made up a sizeable share of traffic at the port pre-crisis, despite it serving as the southern gateway to Saudi Arabia.
Nevertheless, the few larger ships that have journeyed through the Suez to the west of the Rea Sea to maintain regional coverage have made Jeddah their port of call.
In the first two months of 2024, 18 ships with a capacity greater than 10,000 teu docked in Jeddah, according to Lloyd’s List Intelligence.
The Saudi Ports Authority told Lloyd’s List that it has looked to provide additional support for shipping lines, importers, and exporters amid the crisis.
“These initiatives include early planning and communication with shipping lines to establish alternative routes for cargo movement, deploying additional feeder services, and utilising land connectivity between Saudi Arabia's western and eastern ports,” it said.
The capacity of eastern ports in the Middle East Gulf, notably Dammam and Jubail, have also been increased to prevent the negative impact on local cargo movement, it added.
Lloyd’s List Intelligence data shows that in Dammam at least the monthly sum of ship capacity calling the port increased by nearly 10% last month against November last year. In Jubail, both ship calls and the sum of ship capacity calling the port last month were largely unchanged compared with pre-crisis levels.
