\u201cWe are talking to stakeholders about a potential seabridge for exports out of Jubail and also as a sustainable alternative for inbound cargoes to Saudi Arabia,\u201d says Simon Brebner, APM Terminals Bahrain chief commercial officer. \u201cThis concept would enable shipping lines to drop in Bahrain, and cargo to move onwards to Jubail where it would pick up road links into Saudi Arabia. It would be an efficient and quick way of doing things on a reliable basis \u2013 and lines are looking for consistency.\u201d<\/p>\n
The feeder could easily do two trips a week, he says; the concept has been \u2018well received\u2019. \u201cWe can\u2019t sit still; we need to make things happen around us. Hopefully it will materialise later this year or the first quarter 2013.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mr Brebner says carriers already use Bahrain on a \u2018tactical\u2019 basis when faced with delays at Dammam. A major line recently dropped cargo in Bahrain at short notice; the following week\u2019s ship then picked up the cargo and delivered it to Dammam. The feeder link would also provide exporters with prestocking options at Bahrain, something that is in demand, he says.<\/p>\n
APMT opened for business at KBSP in 2009, having signed the concession agreement in 2006, when shipping lines were crying out for additional container capacity.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe concession was signed with the whole purpose of being a transhipment hub in the Upper Gulf,\u201d says Mr Brebner. \u201cAnd it still makes a lot of sense; the position of Bahrain in the Gulf is 45% closer to Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Iraq than Jebel Ali, so it has a strategic advantage. With the growth that is happening in Iraq, it is all going to take off.\u201d<\/p>\n
At present KBSP\u2019s only transhipment caller is APL. The terminal has 1m teu capacity and could step up to 2.5m teu quickly, by installing more equipment. It is currently handling about 400,000 teu, of which 320,000 teu is for the local market.<\/p>\n
Container volumes dipped last year, reflecting the unrest in Bahrain; however, half-year figures for 2012 show local container volumes up by 17%, and transhipment volumes up 21% year on year.<\/p>\n
The port also handles general cargo, cruise ships, ro-ro car carriers and livestock, and provides services to the US Navy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
APM Terminals Bahrain is working with partners to set up a \u2018seabridge\u2019 feeder service which would link Khalifa Bin Salman Port with the Saudi industrial hub of Jubail, providing petrochemical companies with a new export route and enabling imports to bypass congestion at Dammam.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":8546,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[59],"tags":[],"sponsor":[],"class_list":["post-8545","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-middle-east"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8545","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8545"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8545\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8547,"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8545\/revisions\/8547"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8546"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8545"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8545"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8545"},{"taxonomy":"sponsor","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/greenport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/sponsor?post=8545"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}