The Saudi Ports Authority plans to form an independent company to manage the kingdom’s ports.

The authority has now completed privatisation studies that will see all of the kingdom’s eight ports be privatised gradually.

While it is not yet clear when the new company will be set up, the process has been in the pipeline since 1997 when a royal decree allowed private firms to operate berths and equipment owned by the ports authority.

Private companies, however, do not operate berths that handle shipments of oil, which is the kingdom’s main export.

Saudi Ports Authority also plans to raise the kingdom’s container handling capacity to 15 million twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUs) by 2020. The current handling capacity of the ports is about 9 million TEUs.

The kingdom is also planning to build a new port in Jeddah to handle rising food imports and will support operations at Jeddah Islamic Port (MEED 7:3:10).

Jeddah Islamic Port is Saudi Arabia’s main port and its third terminal, the Red Sea Gateway, opened in January 2010 with a capacity of 1.5 million TEUs.

The total capacity at the port is now 7 million TEUs.