Abu Dhabi eyes a Syria-Iraq-UAE trade corridor as the Gulf land-bridge race heats up

Remember how we suggested that infrastructure — more of it, in more verticals, with more redundancy, going to more places — would be the big Gulf investment theme of the next decade? Here’s the latest:

The UAE is angling for a piece of Syria’s logistics corridor, too. Abu Dhabi and Damascus have begun talks to link Syrian ports with Iraq’s Umm Qasr and onward to Khalifa Port in the UAE. Discussions also included possible investments in Syrian free zones, dry ports in Damascus, Aleppo, and Homs, and a proposed logistics hub at the Al-Tanf border crossing. The move comes just a week after AD Ports launched a Khalifa-Umm Qasr service aimed at connecting the Gulf with Turkey and Europe.

The UAE is now the second GCC heavyweight to map out a Syria land bridge. Saudi Arabia has been pushing the Hejaz railway revival through Jordan and Syria as its own bypass play, we reported last month. The Emirati approach is port-to-road; Saudi is focused on, but might explore road, too.

Capitalizing on Syria’s land bridge potential between Europe and the GCC will mean addressing significant friction points, as we unpacked in our April deep dive. Current challenges include back-to-back transfer mandates, aging truck fleets locked out of cross-border movements, patchy insurance, and armed escort costs that eat into any geographic advantage.

And over in Egypt, the UAE’s Fujairah project to expand storage capacity in Al Hamra port could be operational by the end of the year, a report suggests. The USD 457 mn expansion is being developed in partnership with the Egyptian state-owned Wepco and is set to more than double the storage capacity at Al Hamra Petroleum Port in New Alamein to 5.3 mn barrels, up from the current 2.5 mn barrels.

Egypt has big plans for Al Hamra, aiming to lift the port’s storage capacity to 20 mn barrels of crude oil and 400k tonnes of products by 2030. A new pipeline linking the Midor refinery to Al Hamra in 2H this year will close a two-way loop, letting Egypt import crude, refine it domestically, and re-export higher-value products. Fujairah started working on its USD 3 bn oil logistics zone at Al Hamra Port last October, following three agreements the Oil Ministry signed with the Emirate of Fujairah.

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