Mawani inks seven agreements to expand Jeddah's logistics capacity

Mawani to build out storage and inland capacity: The Saudi Ports Authority (Mawani) has signed seven agreements worth a combined SAR 1 bn to build and expand logistics centers at Jeddah Islamic Port and the Al Khumrah zone, according to a post on X.

The scale angle is the headline: The seven centers will span more than 44k sqm of storage, consolidation, and re-export activities, according to the X post. That brings the Kingdom’s total port-based logistics footprint to 34 centers — 17 of them at Jeddah alone — with cumulative investment now exceeding SAR 14 bn, Saudi state news agency SPA reports.

Who’s building what: JD Logistics signed two agreements worth SAR 700 mn covering a 93k sqm port-side facility with refrigerated and dry warehouses, plus a second center at Al Khumrah built around digital logistics infrastructure. Maersk — which already runs the port’s largest logistics complex — is adding 50k sqm of storage facilities and a dedicated re-export zone for SAR 40 mn, with capacity to handle hazardous materials and petrochemical cargo.

Four smaller agreements each target a specific niche. Jadeer Logistics is building a 50k sqm cold-chain warehouse for refrigerated and frozen containers for SAR 57 mn; Shatri Store Trading is pairing a 100k sqm facility with its own inland transportation arm for SAR 80 mn; West Group’s 100k sqm center, built specifically to serve maritime operators, carries an SAR 40 mn price tag; while Masdar’s 91k sqm site, aimed at consolidating building-material supplies, is an SAR 57 mn investment.

IN CONTEXT- Jeddah has been building the connective tissue too. Saudi Arabia is developing an SAR 689 mn, 17-km truck corridor linking the port directly to Al Khumrah, with two lanes in each direction and 12 bridges keeping freight off the city's roads — a corridor Mawani expects to lift handling capacity by 10%. The Kingdom also opened a 1 mn sqm truck marshalling zone that can handle over 40k trucks a day, raised its port gates from 10 to 18, and put SAR 641 mn into new cranes, terminal equipment, and 200k sqm of additional container yards.

Jeddah offers redundancy from Hormuz — not immunity from chokepoint risk

Why this matters: Jeddah has been one of the key ports keeping Gulf trade moving during the disruption — redrawing logistics around chokepoint risk. With the port sitting outside the strait on Saudi Arabia’s Red Sea flank, it is the Kingdom’s natural counterweight to its Gulf-facing gateways. Adding storage, distribution, and re-export capacity there — with the inland extension — gives more room to receive, hold, and redirect cargo when shipping routes become uncertain.

That takes our redundancy and optionality argument one step further. Rerouting vessels and getting cargo around a threatened chokepoint is the first problem, but it creates another one — with displaced containers, congested terminals, longer dwell times, and cargo arriving somewhere that the wider logistics network is not equipped to absorb. The projects build the “back end” that makes rerouting workable.