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Container Carriers Offer Trucking Services Around Hormuz
UAE-Based Trukker Had a 30% Increase in Road Shipments in March
With the near-closure of the Strait of Hormuz in its second month, producers of everything from metal to consumer goods in the Persian Gulf are turning to land transport in an effort to keep their products flowing.
Some of the world’s biggest container carriers have started offering trucking services, and local road haulers have reported a surge in demand. While Gulf states had some contingency measures in place to continue exporting crude oil, the conflict has become a worst-case scenario for the trade in other goods.
Trukker, a United Arab Emirates-basedbusinessthat started an Uber-like service for trucks a decade ago, experienced a 30% increase in its road shipments in March based on full truckloads, CEO Gaurav Biswas said in an interview.
The company, whose large clients include Emirates Global Aluminium, DP World and Unilever Plc, deployed more than 500 trucks for so-called land-bridge operations in the first days of the conflict. It has maintained a continuous flow of goods, mainly petrochemicals and metals, but also food and consumer products.
With trucks providing a link inland from ports on the eastern edge of the UAE and Oman “you can pretty much avoid the Strait of Hormuz and the Red Sea,” Biswas said.
With transits through the strait restricted, Jeddah on Saudi Arabia’s Red Sea coast, and Salalah and Sohar on Oman’s Arabia Sea coast have replaced Persian Gulf ports like Jebel Ali in the UAE as the major conduits for trade in the region.
Since the Strait of Hormuz closure, TruKKer’s volumes have surged 30% as cargo reroutes through Fujairah and Oman, then moves overland. As Gaurav Biswas told Semafor: “Like asking Muscat airport to become Terminal 3 of Dubai.” — TruKKer تركر (@TruKKerTech)
Hapag-Lloyd AG, based in Hamburg in Germany, said last week that it has established ground transport routes across Saudi Arabia and Oman, and going in and out of Bahrain, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar. A.P. Moller-Maersk A/S has published anadvisoryspelling out land-based solutions for cargo across the region.
ranks No. 6 on theTransport Topics list of the Top 50 Global Freight carriers.Hapag-Lloyd ranks No. 17.
Only retail and e-commerce shipments have dipped since the start of the Iran war, said Trukker’s Biswas.
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Trukker has moved from contract pricing to daily spot rates — rising as much as 120% in the UAE and 70% in Saudi Arabia due to higher fuel prices and lower supply, operational constraints at serviceable ports and a shift to long-haul trips. Its busiest routes include east to west in Saudi Arabia and cross-border from UAE to Saudi.
Demand for access at eastern harbors has stretched their capacity levels. The UAE’s Khorfakkan Port handled six times the amount of containers it had in the previous month and trucking is scaling up to move bigger volumes, according to Biswas.
There’s “a big queue of vessels that are waiting to offload containers and pick up other containers,” he said.
