How the Gulf trucked their way out of Hormuz

Back in March, we argued that Gulf states were transitioning from a system built around one optimal trade route toward a “portfolio of corridors.” Two months later, that thesis proved right. What began as an emergency response to the near closure of the strait has since evolved into a regional stress test for supply chains — one that is reshaping how producers, ports, and shipping lines approach resilience across the Middle East.

We also noted at the time that the issue was not about trucks replacing ships, but about redistributing risk across pipelines, inland corridors, ports outside the chokepoints, and multimodal logistics systems — a distinction that proved critical. The past two months have demonstrated the need for flexibility and diversification.

The landbridge moment

What looked like contingency planning is now operating at scale: UAE-based trucking platform Trukker said it deployed more than 500 trucks during the early days of the conflict to support inland landbridge operations — reporting a 30% increase in road shipments during March.

The map changed: With maritime access through Hormuz constrained, ports like Jeddah on Saudi Arabia’s Red Sea coast, and Oman’s Sohar and Salalah increasingly absorbed cargo flows previously routed through hubs like Jebel Ali. IMF Portwatch data showed ship arrivals into Jebel Ali drying up through March and April as carriers and cargo owners searched for alternatives.

Shipping lines also started acting more like overland logistics operators: Hapag-Lloyd established trucking corridors across Saudi, Oman, and the UAE, connecting Bahrain, Kuwait, and Qatar, while Maersk and MSC rolled out similar land-based cargo solutions across the region.

One corridor stood out

At the heart of the landbridge push was a functioning Europe-Egypt-GCC corridor — which saw trailers arriving at Damietta, moving overland to Safaga, and then crossing by ferry to Neom before continuing by road into Gulf markets.

That route matters because it provides a different kind of logistical flexibility — it connects Europe, the Mediterranean, the Red Sea, and the Gulf in one continuous logistics chain. Unlike purely intra-Gulf trucking operations, the Egyptian corridor created a cross-peninsula bypass system that is capable of feeding European goods directly into GCC markets — and vice versa.

It’s live and reliable: “We successfully executed multiple shipments from different European origins, covering both dry and reefer cargo to GCC destinations which started to give more confidence to other customers,” Commercial Director at Pan Marine Ghada Samy tells EnterpriseAM, adding that “customers are increasingly relying on this model, as it is helping them reduce safety stock levels and manage cashflow more efficiently.”

In the longer run, the model works — with a few caveats: “Under normal conditions, this route can make commercial sense when leveraging higher capacity of equipment, door-to-door service, and optimized transit time. As freight rates normalize, the cost gap narrows, making this corridor increasingly competitive,” Samy explains.

What moves — and what doesn’t

The disruptions highlighted which sectors can survive on landbridge logistics. High-value and time-sensitive cargo — industrial inputs, spare parts, FMCG, food products, metals, and petrochemicals — adapted to hybrid land-sea systems despite the added higher costs.

Bulk commodities remain structurally tied…however, Iraq reportedly moved limited crude volumes by truck during the disruption, while Fertiglobe’s CEO Ahmed El-Hoshy said the company continued operations by trucking fertilizer cargoes overland to ports outside Hormuz before loading into ships — a workaround involving “double handling” and higher transport costs.

That distinction matters because the economics still favor shipping: Long-haul trucking remains more expensive than maritime transport on a per ton-km basis — trucking rates climbed as much as 120% in the UAE and 70% in Saudi amid fuel price increases, long haul demand, and operational pressure at serviceable ports — underscoring the argument made in March that land logistics are less about replacing ships and more about prioritizing critical flows.

The cost of redundancy

Until recently, supply chains were largely optimized around cost minimization and route efficiency. Repeated disruptions have accelerated a shift toward a resilience-led model. Which means that to play you have to pay — in a bid to maintain alternative routes, preserve access to multiple ports, expand storage, and keep contingency logistics systems alive even when the cheapest maritime routes partially recover.

We still stand by our take

The underlying model is already changing: Supply chains are moving from an era of narrow optimization to an era of strategic redundancy, where resilient efficiency — not minimal cost — defines a well‑designed network. When the same lanes and chokepoints are repeatedly disrupted, building supply chains around a single “most efficient” route is a concentration of risk.

The bottom line: In March, the question was whether the Gulf could build fallback routes quickly enough to survive the chokepoint disruption. Two months later, the bigger question is whether those fallback systems become permanent features of Middle East trade long after the disruption fades. The future isn’t one dominant route — it’s a portfolio of corridors. Power in global trade is shifting from control of a single chokepoint to control of multiple options when it fails.

“The crisis has made visible what was previously hidden: in an interconnected world, resilience is not a luxury; it is the entry ticket to lasting growth,” Wolfgang Lehmacher, former head of supply chain and transport industries at the World Economic Forum previously told us.