Oman's Salalah Port announces 16% drop in container handling due to Red Sea crisis

Oman's Salalah Port reported a 16 percent drop in container handling in the first half of the year as ships continued to be diverted to the longer Cape of Good Hope route to avoid the Red Sea due to missile and drone attacks.

Salalah Port Services Company said on Monday that the port, which is the closest to the sultanate's border with Yemen, handled 1.679 million containers in the six months to June 30, compared with 1.999 million containers a year earlier.

Shipping lines that avoid the Red Sea area are avoiding the route that Salalah port is located on, said Dean Davison, head of maritime consultancy at Infrata.

Many shipping companies have been forced to divert their ships around the Cape of Good Hope around Africa and avoid the Suez Canal due to attacks by Yemen's Houthi movement with missiles and drones on ships in the Red Sea in solidarity with the Palestinians in the Gaza war.

Salalah Port management expects container handling to continue to decline until at least the end of the year if the crisis remains unresolved. The port operator added that it does not expect the unrest to ease soon.

The company said handling through the port's general cargo terminal rose four percent to 11.655 million tonnes in the first half of the year, driven by increased demand for gypsum and limestone exports.

“Overall, it’s not a bad result in very tough market conditions,” said Eleanor Hadland, senior ports and terminals analyst at Drewry.

Dubai Ports World (DP World) announced the day before yesterday that its profits in the first half of the year fell by 59 percent due to the disruption of shipping traffic.

Source: Reuters