Port to Serve as Main Gateway into Saudi’s Northwest Region
MSC is collaborating with its logistics arm MEDLOG to establish a shipping and logistics hub at the Port of NEOM on Saudi Arabia’s Red Sea Coast.
Geneva-based MSC, one of the world’s largest shipping container lines carrying some 22 million twenty-foot equivalent units, or TEUs, per year, said the hub would include vessels, container yards, warehousing and inland transportation, and would be located at Oxagon, part of the kingdom’s US$500 billion NEOM “smart city” project.
The facility, previously called Duba Port, is being reshaped into the main gateway serving NEOM and Saudi’s northwest region.
MSC, active in Saudi since 1996 with offices in Dammam, Jeddah and Riyadh, said the venture would begin from September. The port, which lies on one the world’s busiest trade routes, would provide access to global markets across Asia, Europe, North America and Africa, it said.
MSC’s customers would also benefit from the port’s planned investment in the latest maritime and logistics innovations such as fully automated management systems to expedite vessel management and streamline logistics operations.
“This exciting venture is a significant step towards the Kingdom becoming a global trade hub, as well as demonstrating MSC’s ongoing commitment to the Saudi market,” said Hisham Alansari, CEO of MSC Saudi. “The new hub will offer MSC customers tailor-made solutions to ensure that people have access to the essential goods they need to thrive.”
NEOM, in northwestern Tabuk Province, is one of several so-called “giga projects” that Saudi Arabia is developing as part of its Vision 2030 plan to pivot the economy away from oil and gas towards more sustainable, private sector-driven industries.
The 26,500-square-kilometre business and logistics zone will house ports, industrial plants, sports stadiums, green energy facilities and a hi-tech, 170-kilometre-long smart city dubbed The Line.
A green hydrogen production facility being built at the sprawling complex is being billed as the world’s largest, with start-up expected in 2025. The plant, which will deploy some 4 gigawatts of solar and wind energy to produce 650 tons of green hydrogen per day, is being developed by NEOM Green Hydrogen Company, or NGHC, a joint venture between ACWA Power, Air Products and NEOM.
MSC operates some 760 vessels calling at 520 ports on more than 300 trade routes. The carrier has in recent times diversified its activities to include overland transportation, logistics and port terminal operations.
MSC will be exhibiting at Breakbulk Americas 2023, taking place on September 26-28 at the George R. Brown Convention Center in Houston, Texas.
PHOTO CREDIT: MSC
