PORT PROFILE — RED SEA
Jeddah Islamic Port Profile
The Kingdom’s largest port and its main import gateway: 62 berths on the Red Sea, two deep-water container terminals run by DP World and Red Sea Gateway Terminal, and a capacity path from 7.5 million towards 8.8 million TEU.
UN/LOCODE
SAJED
Landlord
Saudi Ports Authority (Mawani)
Berths
62
Container capacity
≈7.5 million TEU (designed)
Annual cargo tonnage
≈130 million t
Share of national imports
≈65%
Operator and ownership
- Landlord & regulator
- Saudi Ports Authority (Mawani), which owns the estate and awards the terminal concessions.
- South Container Terminal
- DP World, under a 30-year build-operate-transfer concession. Jeddah was DP World’s first concession outside the UAE, awarded in 1999.
- North Container Terminal
- Red Sea Gateway Terminal (RSGT), Saudi Arabia’s national champion terminal operator, headquartered in Jeddah and operating under a long-term concession renewed in 2020.
- Multipurpose & general cargo
- Operated under separate Mawani concessions covering ro-ro, bulk, livestock and general cargo berths.
- Planned Terminal 4
- A proposed RSGT–CMA CGM joint venture, structured as a sub-concession under RSGT’s existing agreement with Mawani.
Location and coordinates
On the Red Sea at Jeddah, Makkah Province, sitting directly on the Suez–Bab el-Mandeb trunk route between Asia and Europe. That position is the port’s entire commercial logic — and its exposure, as the Red Sea security crisis has repeatedly demonstrated.
- Coordinates
- 21.4838° N, 39.1734° E
- Port area
- ≈12.5 km²
- Berths
- 62
- Max vessel
- Ultra-large container vessels; a 17,225 TEU single-vessel operation has been handled at the South Container Terminal
- Established
- 1976 in its modern form; the anchorage has been in use since antiquity
Cargo types handled
Terminal facilities
- South Container Terminal (DP World)
- Quay length 2,150 m. Capacity raised from 1.8 million to 4 million TEU under a SAR 3 billion ($800 million) three-year programme completed in March 2025, with a path to 5 million TEU. Quay cranes from 14 to 17 and ultimately 22; automated and electrified yard cranes; gate transaction times cut from around two minutes to about ten seconds using IoT and AI tallying.
- North Container Terminal (RSGT)
- The port’s flagship container facility and the largest and most technologically advanced terminal on the Red Sea. A SAR 1 billion (≈$266 million) expansion completed in early 2024 enlarged the terminal area and deepened the berth for larger vessels. Twenty-four ship-to-shore cranes were in place after a 2023 addition of three.
- Terminal 4 (planned)
- A separate 2.6 million TEU container terminal adjacent to the RSGT facilities, under a term sheet signed by RSGT and CMA Terminals in October 2025.
- Multipurpose & general cargo
- Ro-ro ramps, grain and dry-bulk berths, livestock berths, breakbulk and project-cargo berths across the remainder of the 62-berth estate.
- Reefer inspection facility
- DP World is building the largest port-centric refrigerated-container inspection facility in Saudi Arabia at the South Container Terminal, able to inspect up to 75 reefers simultaneously.
Two independent deep-water container terminals under two different operators is unusual, and it is a resilience feature: a labour, systems or equipment problem at one does not close the Kingdom’s main import gateway.
Annual tonnage and TEU
| Metric | Figure | Period |
|---|---|---|
| Annual cargo tonnage | ≈130 million t | recent |
| Container capacity, all terminals | ≈7.5 million TEU | designed, current |
| Container capacity with Terminal 4 | up to 8.8 million TEU | planned |
| Largest single-vessel operation | 17,225 TEU (Maersk Elba) | recent |
| Share of Saudi imports | ≈65% | recent |
| Container throughput, this port | n/p | not published per port |
Mawani publishes container throughput for the ports under its supervision as a NATIONAL figure — 8,317,235 TEU in 2025, up 10.58% on 7,521,306 TEU in 2024, with transhipment up 11.8% to more than 1.9 million TEU and total cargo tonnage of 242 million tonnes. It does not publish an audited annual TEU series per port. Third-party compilations circulate, they disagree with one another, and this desk does not print them: capacity figures come from the operator and Mawani releases, and the throughput cell stays n/p.
SOURCES · Saudi Ports Authority (Mawani) via the Saudi Press Agency · DP World · Red Sea Gateway Terminal · CMA CGM Group
Main carriers and shipping lines
Jeddah is both a gateway and a Red Sea transhipment hub, so the call list mixes trunk-route mainliners with a dense feeder network into Sudan, Eritrea, Djibouti, Yemen and the Egyptian Red Sea ports. Folk Maritime, launched by the Public Investment Fund, is the Saudi national feeder operator. Services change frequently — Mawani announces additions and withdrawals as they happen.
Road and rail connections
- Road
- Highway 5 and the Makkah and Madinah roads; the Jeddah ring roads feed the industrial districts. Mawani is building a dedicated 17 km logistics corridor from the port to the Al-Khumrah Logistics Park — SAR 689 million, two lanes each way and 12 bridges — expected to raise the port’s handling capacity by around 10%.
- Rail — freight
- None. There is no freight railway on the Red Sea coast. The Saudi Landbridge, the long-planned Riyadh–Jeddah freight line, is the project that would change this; it remains in development.
- Rail — passenger
- The Haramain High-Speed Railway serves Jeddah, Makkah, King Abdullah Economic City and Madinah. Passengers only.
- Air
- King Abdulaziz International Airport is roughly 30 km north — the shortest air–sea interchange in the Kingdom.
Customs facilities
ZATCA operates the customs post at the port; FASAH is the single window for declarations, manifests and permits.
Mawani’s Ports Community System sits under the unified national logistics window, connecting the terminal operators, the lines, the agents and customs on one platform.
Bonded storage, transit and re-export regimes are available; SFDA release applies to food, pharmaceuticals, cosmetics and medical devices, and SASO conformity requirements apply to regulated goods.
Automated gate processing at the South Container Terminal cut gate transactions from around two minutes to roughly ten seconds — a customs-adjacent change that shows up directly in truck turn times.
Cold-chain capability
Refrigerated container capacity at the South Container Terminal was expanded from 1,200 to 2,340 plugs as part of the DP World programme.
DP World is building the largest port-centric reefer inspection facility in Saudi Arabia at the terminal, capable of inspecting up to 75 refrigerated containers at once — which addresses the classic reefer bottleneck, which is inspection rather than storage.
The port is the Kingdom’s principal entry point for imported chilled and frozen food, and Makkah Province is the largest cold-chain region in Saudi Arabia by market share.
Dangerous-goods capability
Dangerous goods are handled under the IMDG Code, with segregation and dedicated storage areas, and prior notification and approval through Mawani and ZATCA.
Certain classes require additional clearance and time-limited storage; explosives and Class 1 material are not routine at Jeddah in the way they are at Dammam, which operates a dedicated explosives berth.
Expansion projects
- South Container Terminal expansion — complete
- SAR 3 billion ($800 million), inaugurated March 2025. Capacity 1.8 → 4 million TEU with a path to 5 million; 2,150 m of quay; automation, IoT cargo tracking and AI tallying; reefer plugs 1,200 → 2,340.
- Red Sea Gateway Terminal expansion — complete
- SAR 1 billion (≈$266 million) with Mawani, completed early 2024: enlarged terminal area and deeper berth for larger vessels.
- Terminal 4 — term sheet signed
- RSGT and CMA Terminals signed a term sheet in October 2025 for a joint venture to build and operate a separate 2.6 million TEU terminal. The planned investment is SAR 1.7 billion ($450 million), taking RSGT’s handling capacity up to 8.8 million TEU.
- Al-Khumrah logistics corridor
- A SAR 689 million dedicated 17 km road corridor between the port and the Al-Khumrah Logistics Park, expected to add around 10% to handling capacity.
Official contact links
- Saudi Ports Authority (Mawani) ↗
- The landlord and regulator — port pages, tariffs, statistics and service announcements.
- Red Sea Gateway Terminal ↗
- The North Container Terminal operator.
- DP World ↗
- The South Container Terminal operator.
- ZATCA ↗
- Customs, tariff and clearance rules.
- FASAH ↗
- The national trade single window.
RiyadhCargo.com is an independent news monitoring service. It is not affiliated with, endorsed by or acting for any organisation named on this page. Links are provided for reference only.
Latest related news
Nothing on the wire mentioning Jeddah Islamic Port at the moment. The desk below carries the wider beat, and the feeds refresh every 10 minutes.
Frequently asked questions
How many containers does Jeddah Islamic Port handle?
Mawani publishes container throughput nationally, not per port — 8,317,235 TEU across its ports in 2025. Jeddah’s designed container capacity across its terminals is around 7.5 million TEU, rising to as much as 8.8 million if the planned Terminal 4 is built. This desk prints capacity where capacity is what is published, and leaves the per-port throughput cell as n/p.
Who operates the terminals?
Two operators run the container terminals: DP World holds the South Container Terminal on a 30-year BOT concession, and Red Sea Gateway Terminal runs the North Container Terminal under its own long-term concession. Mawani is the landlord.
Is there a railway to Jeddah port?
No freight railway. There is none anywhere on the Red Sea coast. The Saudi Landbridge, a planned Riyadh–Jeddah freight line, would be the first; the Haramain High-Speed Railway that serves Jeddah is passenger-only.
How much reefer capacity is there?
The South Container Terminal has 2,340 reefer plugs, up from 1,200, and DP World is building the largest port-centric reefer inspection facility in the Kingdom there — able to inspect up to 75 refrigerated containers simultaneously.
How exposed is the port to Red Sea disruption?
Directly. The port sits on the Suez–Bab el-Mandeb trunk route, and carrier diversions around the Cape of Good Hope change both its gateway and its transhipment volumes. Coverage of that corridor sits on the Red Sea desk.
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