Oman’s Transport & Communications Ministry has invited consultants to bid by 31 August for the study and design of phase three of the Port of Salalah.

Located in the Dhofar governorate along the Arabian Sea, the sultanate’s largest port is being expanded as planned in spite of fierce competition coming from other regional ports and the prospect of decreasing container transshipment volume over the short term.

Compared with some of the older ports in the neighboring GCC states, the Port of Salalah can cater to larger vessels with its 16-to-18-metre harbor depth and 18.5-to-20-metre approach channel. This feature meets a growing trend among shipping companies to use larger vessels that sail less frequently in keeping with improving operational efficiencies and keeping a lead on operational costs.

MEED reported in March this year that projections for the future suggest port operators should plan for a steady pace of growth over the next five to 10 years.

Ocean Shipping Consultants (OSC), part of the Netherlands-based Royal Haskoning DHV group, is predicting that overall container port demand in the Gulf, Arabian Sea and Red Sea regions will rise by about 33 per cent between 2015 and 2020, a similar level to the rate of expansion over the past five years. That will mean throughput rising to 53-60 million 20-foot equivalent units (TEUs) by 2020. OSC says the following five years should see a further 26 per cent expansion, taking throughput to 64-76 million TEUs by 2025.

To put that in context, last year, OSC estimates that 40.5 million TEUs went through these ports, up from 38.1 million TEUs the year before. In both years, about half the total, 46-47 per cent, was accounted for by transshipment traffic.