Dubai logistics company DP World has commenced work on a SAR900 million ($250 million) logistics park in Saudi Arabia’s Jeddah Islamic Port. This facility will have a rooftop solar plant in the warehouse that is expected to generate 20 MW of renewable energy.
The new storage and distribution facilities, being developed along with the state-backed Saudi Ports Authority (Mawani), will boost trade in the kingdom and the wider region. The 415,000 sq m “greenfield” facility will provide 185,000 sq m of warehousing space and a multi-purpose storage yard, making it the “largest integrated logistics park in the kingdom.
The park will have more than 390,000 pallet positions, a measure of the inventory capacity within a warehouse, providing an efficient flow of goods to and from Jeddah. Established in 2022 as part of a 30-year concession, Jeddah Logistics Park will be developed in two phases, with a planned opening in the second quarter of 2025.
The collaboration between Mawani and DP World includes managing the South Container Terminal through another 30-year concession signed in 2020. The terminal is currently in the final phase of a modernisation project and is scheduled for completion in the fourth quarter of 2024. The project will ramp up the handling capacity to five million twenty-foot equivalent units.
Major logistics center planned for Saudi’s third city DP World sets capex at $2bn despite ‘uncertain’ outlook DP World teams up with Rumo for new Brazilian port terminal DP World’s combined investment in the two projects stands at SAR4 billion. Jeddah Logistics Park, located on the vital Asia-Europe shipping route, provides multimodal connectivity and market access for customers, said Sultan Ahmed bin Sulayem, chairman and CEO of DP World.
Omar Bin Talal Hariri, president of Mawani, added that the new logistics area will be connected to DP World’s South Container Terminal at Jeddah Islamic Port, facilitating growth and increasing the number of containers handled at the terminal. Saudi Arabia is trying to increase port capacity to more than 40 million standard containers and its share of the trans-shipment market to 45 percent as part of its economic development plans.
The Red Sea coastal region features heavily in the giga-projects at the heart of the plan to diversify the Saudi economy, including Neom in north-west Saudi Arabia, luxury resort Amaala, Jeddah Central, and entertainment and tourism centers in Jizan and Abha.