Abu Dhabi, UAE—Sept. 4, 2012—Years of planning and execution culminated this month with the commencement of commercial operations by Abu Dhabi Ports Company (ADPC) at the Khalifa Port, the most technically advanced port in the MENA region.
Khalifa Port was designed to make a major contribution towards achieving the Abu Dhabi Economic Vision 2030 of a sustainable and diversified economy.
Abu Dhabi has been furnished with port facilities which have increased steadily to meet the region’s economic growth. The investment in ports has stimulated growth by constantly expanding capacity in line with growing market demand.
In 2012, Mina Zayed celebrated 40 years as a highly successful port; it is expected to reach maximum container capacity by the end of the year due to sustained growth in Abu Dhabi. This has been well planned and all of Mina Zayed’s container traffic will have been transferred to Khalifa Port by the end of Q1 2013.
Mina Zayed, located in the heart of the city center, will continue with commercial cargo and concentrate on developing the growing cruise liner business at the port. The degree of planning around the development of these business assets has been impressive and underlines Abu Dhabi’s rigorous approach of only constructing port capacity or developing existing ports, when the market for it already exists.
Khalifa Port is designed to be rolled out in phases should market demand require it. For example, the technology and infrastructure are flexible, creating economies of scale that will reduce the cost should there be demand for future expansion. The port has been dredged to be deeper than needed to accommodate ever larger ships. Khalifa Port’s ship to shore cranes are among the largest in the world and have been built not only to be able to unload the world’s largest ships today, but to be able to handle even greater vessels that might be developed in years to come.
At the heart of Khalifa Port is the advanced Terminal Operational Building which houses state-of-the-art computer technology used to control much of the container terminal. It is the long term investment thinking in features such as Khalifa Port’s sophisticated digital infrastructure that allows Abu Dhabi to offer shipping lines and trucking companies streamlined logistics with shorter container transportation times at highly competitive costs.
Khalifa Port’s container terminal will be operated by the leading port operator, Abu Dhabi Terminals (ADT).
Khalifa Port’s container terminal has a capacity of 2.5 million TEUs (containers) a year, with an additional 12 million tons of general cargo, including 4 million tons a year from the busy Emirates Aluminum (EMAL) berth which opened in late 2010.
