UAE’s DP World begins $1.6 bln Jebel Ali port upgrade

United Arab Emirates-based DP World, one of the world’s largest port operators, has begun work on a new $1.6 billion container terminal at Jebel Ali Port in Dubai in response to demand for more capacity and larger vessels.

Phase 1 of the container Terminal 4 at the port will create new capacity of 3.1 million twenty-foot equivalent units (TEU) by 2018, taking the total capacity at DP World's flagship port to 22.1 million TEU, the port operator said in a statement.

The capacity addition is in response to feedback from customers expressing the need for more capacity at Jebel Ali due to an expected increase in trade in the run-up to Expo 2020, the statement added.

In a separate statement, DP World also said its first-half 2015 gross container volumes across its global ports were up 4.1 per cent to 30.6 million TEUs due to volume growth in Europe and its UAE terminals.

Jebel Ali and other DP World terminals in the UAE handled 7.9 million TEU in the first half of 2015, representing a growth of six percent compared with the first half of 2014, the statement added.