Commentary Breakbulk & Project Cargo

By Susan Oatway

Marine terminal congestion on Saudi Arabia’ s Red Sea coast could be the first sign that demand for land bridge services initially developed in response to the Suez Canal security crisis is exceeding available capacity.

Those services were never meant to be a permanent replacement for ocean transport, so it’ s not a huge surprise that they’ ve hit their limits, particularly given that the closure of the Strait of Hormuz has compromised the country’ s east coast ports. But project cargo shippers are concerned the congestion will worsen the longer the Suez and Hormuz crises persist, and additional landside capacity— whether on the highways or in the form of a cross-country intermodal rail link— is years away.

Waiting times to berth project cargo shipments at the Port of Jeddah on Saudi Arabia’ s west coast spiked to 10 days in mid-August, as surging volumes on the trucking routes cutting through the country put upstream pressure on terminals.

Miles of trucks waited outside the gates with cargoes shipped south through the Suez Canal to Jeddah and King Abdullah Port, located just north of Jeddah, and then trucked across the country to Dammam Port on the East Coast. Cargoes are then loaded onto smaller vessels to reach the United Arab Emirates( UAE) and Bahrain.

The journey reverts for cargoes landing in Dammam and other East Coast gateways.

Trucks in mid-August were waiting up to three days to enter Jeddah, an oil component

Middle East breakbulk imports collapse amid Iran war

Monthly imports of selected project cargoes, including steel, aluminum, reactors, machinery and heavy vehicles, by country, in thousands of tons

Thousands of tons

5,000

4,000

3,000 2,000

2,000

1,000

Saudi Arabia UAE Iraq Iran Qatar Jordan Yemen Bahrain

Notes: UAE is " mirror " data based on exports reported by other countries, rather than imports reported by UAE

Source: S & P Global Market Intelligence © 2026 S & P Global

L shipper who asked not to be identified told the Journal of Commerce.

Saudi Arabia’ s other West Coast ports are not a suitable secondary option, a port operator told the Journal of Commerce. And while the rail link connecting to Jordan is taking some pressure off the highways, an intermodal connection traversing Saudi Arabia from east to west isn’ t anticipated until after 2030.

Sustainable supply chains?

Project cargo shippers in the region tell the Journal of Commerce they are less concerned about when things will return to“ normal,” and more concerned about whether the supply chains they are building today are sustainable for the future.

Following the closure of the Strait of Hormuz at the start of the US-Iran war, some project cargoes were moved out of the UAE by truck to Jeddah and Yemen.

At that time, shippers told the Journal of Commerce stories of waiting two weeks for a truck and then paying an extra $ 20,000 per TEU as road freight from Dubai to other Gulf Cooperation Council( GCC) countries— Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain and Oman— rose 25 % in June. Truck capacity was put under extreme strain across key corridors including in Oman, Fujairah and Saudi Arabia. In addition, driver shortages, especially for specialized heavy-haul moves, added a further 20 % to 30 % uplift in rates.

Many multipurpose carriers rerouted their vessels around the Cape of Good Hope in southern Africa when the Red Sea crisis started in 2023, while those still servicing the Middle East region mainly switched to ports on the Persian Gulf. When the war with Iran began, the sudden closure of the Strait of Hormuz meant both waterways were compromised.

Although some carriers continue to move cargoes from the Mediterranean into the northern Red Sea via the Suez Canal, most still view the routing as too dangerous. Since the start of the Red Sea attacks, Suez Canal transits have been cut in half, according to Egypt’ s State Information Service( SIS).

General cargo vessels are less reliant on the Red Sea corridor, but project carriers with time-sensitive, high-value cargo, especially those carrying cargo out of the Persian Gulf and / or India into Europe, have been more severely impacted.

18 Journal of Commerce | September 2026 www. joc. com