Abu Dhabi Port Celebrates Record Year for Cargo
Abu Dhabi Ports, which manages nine commercial, logistics, community and leisure ports in the UAE capital and Khalifa Port, celebrated a record year for cargo containers with a 26 per cent growth in 2014 over the previous year.
Khalifa Port, built on a man-made island, handled 1.13 million TEUs (twenty-foot equivalent unit containers) in 2014, representing growth of 26 percent, Abu Dhabi Terminals (ADT). The new Khalifa port began operations in late 2012 to take over container traffic from the existing Mina Zayed Port.
“2014 had been the busiest year at Khalifa Port Container Terminal and the fifth straight year that our compound year-on-year growth has risen more than 20 per cent,” Martijn van de Linde, ADT’s Chief Executive Officer, said in a statement.
“While we are incredibly pleased with this progress and everything we have achieved, we continue working on more expansion plans and further automation of our operations in 2015,” he added.
“Khalifa Port has the space and the capacity to allow the business across the Emirate to take advantage of growing global trade opportunities, by increasing their import/export trade while making use of Khalifa Ports’ excellent facilities and industry-leading productivity levels and turnaround times,” commented Captain Mohamed Juma Al Shamisi, CEO of Abu Dhabi Ports.
ADT is jointly owned by Abu Dhabi Ports, Mubadala and Mubadala Infrastructure Partners. Khalifa Port’s container terminal currently has an annual capacity of 2.5 million TEUs. This can be raised to 5 million TEUs, depending on demand over the next few years. Abu Dhabi has said its long-term goal is to increase it to 15 million by 2030, depending on demand.
