Port of Duqm Gets $550M Expansion
Investcorp Aberdeen Infrastructure Partners, a joint Anglo-Bahraini investment vehicle, has won the mandate to join a consortium comprising the state-owned Port of Duqm Company, and the Belgian DEME Group and Port of Antwerp, to take forward a $550 million project to expand Duqm’s port facilities. Duqm lies on Oman’s south-east Arabian Sea coast, unconstrained by any requirement for access through the Straits of Hormuz. Besides its container handling infrastructure, the port already has an international airport nearby, and maintenance and dry dock facilities for supporting merchant vessels and the largest warships.
The project will see marine infrastructure works, dredging and the construction of a new quay wall to expand the existing port. The new facilities will expand an industrial area in the Duqm Special Economic Zone which will use solar and wind power from Duqm’s desert hinterland to generate green hydrogen fuel, which will in turn then be used to produce low-carbon iron briquettes and base metal products.
A delegation led by Dr Firas Al Abduwani from the Omani Ministry of Energy and Minerals has recently visited Rotterdam and Brussels to sell the virtues of using Oman’s renewable energy to produce this low carbon semi-processed iron in Duqm. He has advocated that this will facilitate the retention of labour-intensive, low energy work in Europe which will be needed to produce finished iron and steel goods. In later development phases, green steel will be produced in Duqm as well.
The Omani parastatal Hydrom has already awarded contracts valued initially at $30 billion to five consortia generating 18 gigawatts of solar and wind power to produce green hydrogen fuel, involving Shell, BP, companies from Belgium, Korea and Singapore, together with OQ and private Omani companies. The planned green hydrogen output of these projects is largely allocated or forward-sold.
Investcorp Aberdeen’s Bahrain head office is led by Mohammed Al Ardhi, a former fast jet pilot and commander of the Royal Air Force of Oman. His fund has already invested in four major schemes in the Gulf, and is looking to invest in similar large-scale infrastructure projects within the GCC.