Borouge shifts export focus eastward amid Hormuz instability

AD Ports doubles down on the East Coast: AD Ports and Borouge signed an agreement to explore building an alternative export hub for petrochemical shipments on the UAE’s East Coast — centered around Fujairah and other eastern port facilities.

The group activated a “firm strategy” to completely reengineer supply chains during the disruptions, shifting cargo flows across alternative corridors by sea, road, rail, and air while activating what it calls the “East Coast Plan” to bypass disrupted maritime chokepoints entirely.

Why this matters: Gulf logistics is treating the disruptions as a structural operating condition rather than a temporary shock. What started as contingency routing is turning into permanent infrastructure. AD Ports is building redundancy across the entire supply chain, spanning ports, trucks, rail, air freight, and storage. This matters because the Gulf’s logistics race is notably shifting from simple port throughput that can maintain a portfolio of corridors under geopolitical stress.

DATA POINT- More than 130k containers and 215k tons of bulk cargo have moved through Fujairah and Khor Fakkan since the beginning of March, AD Ports Chief Sustainability and Risk Management Officer Saif Al Mehairi told CNBC Arabia.

The scale: East Coast container handling rates now exceed 1.8k containers per day, with Fujairah alone seeing vessel calls increase to more than 25 ships a month. The group deployed more than 800 trucks to move cargo inland toward ports like Khalifa, while rail volumes jumped from just four monthly trips to some 120 currently, with the occupancy rate reaching 80%. More than 100 cargo flights were also deployed, while storage capacity was expanded by more than 76k sqm.