The inaugural shipment of roughly 200 TEUs on a Multi-Carrying Vessel (MCV) sailed from the Port of Jebel Ali to Port of Ajman and arrived on-time on the 7th October 2022.
The new routes are serviced by a fleet of modified Multi-Carrying Vessels (MCV) to bypass congestion by calling smaller berths. The shallow draft vessels use less space and can access areas of ports, where larger ships cannot fit due to their size and length and can turn around at least twice as fast as larger vessels on shortsea routes. This is particularly useful when connecting UAE coastal feeder ports with hub ports.
The addition of marine services to the UAE’s 700-km Arabian Gulf coastline, gives customers more efficient access to Jebel Ali Port, and potentially cuts transit times by days. Initial shipments will focus on moving food imports into the UAE with its reefer capabilities, and moving commodities such as cement, out of it. The multi-modal offering means export customers benefit from seamless, last-mile delivery once cargo arrives at its destination port.
By moving additional volumes of containerized cargo between Jebel Ali and other ports in the UAE, we will connect customers and main line carriers to an integrated ecosystem at the Jebel Ali Free Zone (JAFZA), which connects to more than 150 ports worldwide and serves more than 3.5 billion people globally.
“We’ve created this new coastal service to better support our customers in the UAE region and mitigate the rapidly increasing costs of trade. Our hope is that our customers can enjoy a more seamless and sustainable solution along the coast of the UAE, as well as secure better access to our global hub, Jebel Ali,” said Jesper Kristensen, Unifeeder CEO.
The service starts with 2-3 calls per week, with a focus on connecting the UAE to the wider Middle East, Africa, the Indian Subcontinent and Far East.
For the next phase of development, we will deploy additional MCVs and add more port calls along the UAE coast. The focal point will remain the Port of Jebel Ali, thereby strengthening the competitiveness of the port and the trade capability of the UAE at large.
