International Maritime
DP World-operated terminals there reported a 90 % drop in volume to 374,000 TEUs, down from 3.8 million TEUs in the second quarter of 2025.
“ It’ s probably early to be thinking about the worst-case scenario, but the future of Jebel Ali, a major Middle East hub, is perhaps open to some sort of conjecture,” Dekker noted.
In what is being seen as a resilience plan, DP World in July signed an agreement with the Fujairah Port Authority to build two container terminals in a new deepwater gateway on the UAE’ s eastern coast just south of the Strait of Hormuz.“ Fujairah is poised to become a leading center for maritime services,” DP World said in a statement announcing the investment.
DP World is not the only company investing heavily in ports near the entrance to the Persian Gulf that will allow ships to drop off cargo without running the Hormuz gauntlet. UAE-based port operator Gulftainer recently unveiled plans to expand its Khorfakkan Commercial Terminal from 3.5 million TEUs to 10 million TEUs as part of an ambitious drive to create a Middle East“ integrated logistics ecosystem.”
In June, CMA CGM signed a $ 400 million agreement with Omani state-owned Asyad Group to develop and operate a multipurpose logistics terminal in the strategically positioned Port of Sohar.
How much of Jebel Ali’ s massive loss of volume from the Hormuz blockade has been absorbed by these ports outside the strait is not yet clear. But in a LinkedIn post, Vespucci Maritime CEO Lars Jensen said the Hormuz crisis would need to“ persist for years” for the terminals to gain advantage from their expansion.
Preparing for long-term disruption
While port operators plan ahead, container lines are also building options to manage the Hormuz disruption.
“ In response to the current situation, we have adapted parts of our Gulf network and are using alternative routings where required,” a spokesperson for Hapag-Lloyd told the Journal of Commerce.
But the spokesperson hinted at a longer-term strategy should Hormuz remain out of bounds.
“ At this stage, we see these measures primarily as temporary contingency solutions to maintain service continuity under difficult circumstances,” she said.“ However, depending on how the situation develops and how infrastructure evolves, alternative routings and product options could also become part of a broader mediumterm offering.”
The spokesperson could not comment on volume shifts from Jebel Ali to other regional ports, but said Hapag-Lloyd could see in its Middle East network that cargo flows were being adjusted through a combination of alternative ports, inland transport solutions and adapted service rotations.
The overland services involve connecting cargo via ports outside the Strait of Hormuz and moving containers onward, mainly by truck. Most of the ocean carriers are offering the overland options, but the solutions face limited capacity and are provided at a considerable added cost to shippers.
That has produced another risk element where lowervalue cargo could be destroyed by transport cost rather than being displaced by routing, according to Dekker. If surcharges, truck moves, feeder relays and insurance costs made lower-value cargo uneconomic, the impact would be demand erosion rather than a clean transfer from Jebel Ali to Sohar or Fujairah.
“ There already has been demand disruption in terms of the pure amount of business going in and out of the Gulf,” Dekker said.“ But some cargo simply won’ t be able to stomach the additional costs of physical changes and logistical issues because that would make their carriage unviable.”
email: greg. knowler @ spglobal. com
Container volumes through Jebel Ali port in Dubai( pictured) plummeted 90 % in Q2. Druid007 / Shutterstock. com
32 Journal of Commerce | September 7, 2026 www. joc. com