One of the world’s largest port operators is making a permanent bet that the Strait of Hormuz will never again be the only way in or out of the Persian Gulf — and it is putting hundreds of millions of dollars behind that bet. DP World, the Dubai-based logistics giant that handles roughly 10% of global container traffic, confirmed it is in active negotiations with UAE officials to develop a brand-new multipurpose port and container terminal near Fujairah on the Gulf of Oman coast, according to a Financial Times exclusive published July 14. The location is the point: Fujairah sits roughly 70 nautical miles south of the strait, with direct access to the Indian Ocean and no requirement to pass through the waterway that Iran has made increasingly deadly.

This is not a contingency plan. It is a structural response to a structural failure — one that exposed Jebel Ali, the UAE’s flagship container port and one of the world’s busiest, as fatally dependent on a 21-nautical-mile chokepoint controlled at its margins by Iranian territory.

Jebel Ali Lost Nearly All Its Traffic Overnight

The scale of what happened to Jebel Ali when Iran effectively closed the Strait of Hormuz on March 4, 2026 — in retaliation for US and Israeli airstrikes that killed Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei — makes the logic of the Fujairah investment impossible to argue with. Container traffic at the port fell by 90% to 95%, dropping from roughly 40,000 containers a day to just 1,000 by early July, according to the Wall Street Journal. What had been the Middle East’s dominant logistics hub, handling 15.6 million containers in 2025 alone, was reduced to a fraction of its normal throughput by geography it cannot change.

Jebel Ali is located 35 kilometers southwest of Dubai, inside the Persian Gulf. That position is a structural liability: every container that arrives at or departs from it must pass through Hormuz. The port is surrounded by a sprawling free zone, warehouses, and heavy industrial facilities that took decades to build — and that geography cannot be relocated. DP World sources were explicit that there are no plans to downsize Jebel Ali, whose industrial ecosystem cannot be reproduced on the east coast. But the crisis made clear that Jebel Ali alone is not enough.

Moody’s projected the conflict would cut DP World’s annual earnings to roughly $5.9 billion in 2026, down from $6.6 billion in 2025 — a $700 million reduction directly attributable to the strait’s closure. DP World contributes more than 10% of UAE GDP and approximately 33.4% of Dubai’s GDP. That makes Jebel Ali’s dependence on Hormuz not merely a corporate problem but a national economic vulnerability.

What DP World Is Building — and What It Cannot Yet Replace

DP World is in talks on two distinct projects at Fujairah: a brand-new multipurpose port on the coastline, and a separate container terminal at the emirate’s existing harbor, though project structure and financing remain unsettled. A senior company official described the initiative to the Financial Times as “defensive in case things go wrong” — language that signals the company intends Fujairah as a permanent strategic hedge rather than a crisis workaround.

The port could be completed within 18 months of final approvals and financing, at an initial investment of hundreds of millions of dollars, rising as capacity is added. Containers arriving at Fujairah would be transported overland by road to Dubai, Abu Dhabi, and other Gulf markets — a route of roughly 160 kilometers that bypasses Hormuz entirely.

What Fujairah cannot replicate, at least in the near term, is scale. Jebel Ali handled 15.6 million twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUs) in 2025, making it the ninth-largest container port in the world. Fujairah’s current throughput capacity is roughly 720,000 TEUs per year. Khor Fakkan, the UAE’s main fully operational east coast container facility, has theoretical capacity of five million TEUs but has never processed more than three million. The east coast ports cannot absorb what Jebel Ali normally moves.

The engineering math also explains why overland logistics cannot fully substitute for maritime throughput. A single container vessel carries more than 10,000 containers — the equivalent of 10,000 trucks or 100 trains. Trucking containers 160 kilometers from Fujairah to Dubai costs more per unit than direct maritime delivery to Jebel Ali. That cost differential means the Fujairah port is a resilience asset for disruption periods, not a lower-cost alternative to normal operations.

Engineering the Escape: Pipeline Bypass Already Running, Second Doubling Capacity

For crude oil, the UAE already built its bypass. The Abu Dhabi Crude Oil Pipeline — also known as the Habshan-Fujairah pipeline — has been operational since 2012, running from Abu Dhabi’s inland production areas to Fujairah’s coast, where crude can be loaded onto tankers heading directly into the Indian Ocean. The existing pipeline carries up to 1.8 million barrels per day without touching the strait.

A second pipeline — the West-East Pipeline — is now being fast-tracked and was approximately 50% complete as of May 2026, with an operational target of 2027. When finished, it will roughly double ADNOC’s Fujairah export capacity to an estimated 3.6 million barrels per day of combined bypass throughput.

For context: the Strait of Hormuz carried approximately 20 million barrels per day of crude oil and petroleum products before the conflict, representing about 25% of global seaborne oil trade and 20% of global LNG trade. Combined Saudi and UAE pipeline bypass capacity — Saudi Arabia’s East-West pipeline at up to 7 million bpd, plus UAE ADCOP at up to 1.8 million bpd — covers roughly 6.5 to 8.5 million barrels per day, far short of the 20 million that normally flow through the strait. The DP World Fujairah port extends that bypass logic to containerized cargo — food, manufactured goods, petrochemicals, raw materials — for the first time at potentially significant scale.

UAE Declares Zero Hormuz Dependency — A Government-Level Commitment

The Fujairah port plan is not a DP World initiative operating in isolation. It is the container-trade component of a whole-of-government UAE infrastructure strategy that UAE Minister of Foreign Trade Thani Al Zeyoudi made explicit on June 17, 2026: “We’re moving toward having zero Hormuz dependency and that’s regardless of whether it’s open or not. It’s going to open and we hope that will happen quickly, but we will not stop the new plan.”

That declaration was made after a temporary US-Iran ceasefire in mid-June nominally reopened the strait — and before the ceasefire collapsed again in early July following renewed Iranian attacks on commercial shipping. The July 13 cruise missile strikes on two UAE-owned oil tankers, the Mombasa and Al Bahiyah, killing one Indian crew member and injuring eight others, gave immediate and concrete urgency to infrastructure that officials had described as long-term strategic planning. Daily vessel transits through Hormuz, which peaked near 135 before the conflict, briefly recovered toward 40 during the ceasefire period and have since fallen to near-standstill.

A new high-speed railway connecting Fujairah with Dubai and Abu Dhabi is scheduled to begin regular passenger services this summer, with integrated container delivery systems being implemented — providing the inland logistics backbone the east coast ports need. Plans to expand port infrastructure extend to Dibba and Khor Fakkan as well, and feasibility studies are underway for at least one additional harbor on the eastern coastline. Sharjah-based Gulftainer separately announced a $2 billion investment to expand container handling capacity at its Khor Fakkan terminal, which saw weekly container movements surge from roughly 8,000 before the conflict to as high as 65,000 at peak diversion.

While UAE Builds Escape Hatch, Four Gulf Neighbors Have No Hormuz Exit

The most consequential implication of the DP World announcement is the one it least directly addresses: what it reveals about the countries that cannot do what the UAE is doing. Of the eight nations bordering the Persian Gulf, only Saudi Arabia and the UAE have operational infrastructure that can route energy exports around the Strait of Hormuz. Saudi Arabia’s East-West crude pipeline runs from Gulf production fields to the Red Sea port of Yanbu. The UAE’s ADCOP runs to Fujairah on the Gulf of Oman.

Kuwait, Iraq, Qatar, and Bahrain have no equivalent alternative. Qatar — the world’s second-largest LNG exporter, whose Ras Laffan facility declared force majeure on all LNG shipments in March 2026 after Iranian attacks — has no pipeline alternative for gas exports; LNG cannot be moved through pipelines. Iraq depends on the strait for roughly 90% of state budget revenues and most of its food imports. Bahrain’s aluminum and oil exports, which represent more than two-thirds of government revenue, were severely curtailed during the blockade.

The Gulf Cooperation Council is effectively bifurcating into Hormuz-resilient economies — the UAE and Saudi Arabia — and Hormuz-dependent ones for whom no amount of investment produces an exit from the chokepoint. That gap widens each time the UAE or Saudi Arabia adds pipeline or port capacity outside Hormuz, and DP World’s Fujairah announcement represents the most significant widening to date on the container-trade side.

Lars Jensen, CEO of shipping consultancy Vespucci Maritime, predicted the disruption to Jebel Ali’s role is likely to be “significant and permanent” — a judgment that implicitly acknowledges that even a diplomatic resolution to the Iran conflict does not restore shippers’ and insurers’ confidence in a route that proved this vulnerable.

Whether the Route Holds Under Stress Is the Real Test

Wolfgang Lehmacher, former head of supply chain and transport industries at the World Economic Forum, offered a more cautionary framework. New Gulf ports, Fujairah included, need to be judged as resilience assets rather than by throughput numbers alone, he told EnterpriseAM: a route or a port can itself become a target or get constrained, so a bypass only counts if shippers and insurers actually trust it under stress.

His practical test comes down to three questions: Can high-value cargo move through east coast gateways at a reasonable cost when Hormuz is not safe? Do customs and data systems allow fast rerouting without getting stuck in red tape? And are security arrangements solid enough for a risk committee to sign off? These questions are not rhetorical. Iran struck the Fujairah Oil Industry Zone with drones in May 2026, sparking a fire at one of the UAE’s most critical energy facilities. The IRGC Navy published a map appearing to extend its zone of control along the UAE’s eastern coastline.

The Fujairah port plan remains early-stage. Governance details — including how a new DP World terminal would coordinate with the existing Fujairah Terminals concession operated by AD Ports Group — have not been settled. Key tests will include whether major shipping lines commit regular services to a Fujairah terminal, whether overland logistics can serve Gulf markets competitively, and whether insurance and risk committees certify the route as sufficiently secure.

Whether or not a durable Hormuz resolution ever materializes, the UAE has made clear it intends to build as though it will not — and that the rebuilding has already, permanently, begun.

Frequently Asked QuestionsIs the new Fujairah port meant to replace Jebel Ali?

No. DP World has been explicit that it has no plans to downsize or replace Jebel Ali. The new Fujairah multipurpose port and terminal are designed as a resilience hedge — a permanent bypass option that can absorb cargo during future Hormuz disruptions — not a replacement for a facility that handled 15.6 million containers in 2025 and sits at the center of a decades-built industrial free zone. Jebel Ali’s scale advantage (roughly 19 million TEUs of capacity versus Fujairah’s current 720,000 TEUs per year) means the east coast cannot substitute for it; it can only supplement it.

Do other Gulf countries have comparable Hormuz bypass options?

Only Saudi Arabia, which can route crude oil through its East-West pipeline to the Red Sea port of Yanbu. No other Gulf state — Kuwait, Iraq, Qatar, or Bahrain — has an operational pipeline or port infrastructure that allows energy or container exports to bypass the Strait of Hormuz. Qatar’s LNG exports have no pipeline alternative. Iraq depends on the strait for roughly 90% of state revenues and most of its food imports. The UAE’s commitment to “zero Hormuz dependency” will permanently widen the resilience gap between itself and neighbors who cannot make the same investment.

How long would the Fujairah port take to build, and what would it cost?

A senior DP World official told the Financial Times the port could be completed within approximately 18 months of final approvals and financing, at an initial investment of hundreds of millions of dollars — with the potential for more capital as capacity is added. The timeline depends on securing a final investment decision, resolving governance questions with existing Fujairah terminal concession holders, and attracting major shipping line commitments for regular service calls. No final investment decision had been announced as of July 15, 2026.

Can overland truck routes from Fujairah actually substitute for Jebel Ali’s maritime access?

Not at scale, and not at equivalent cost. A single container vessel carries more than 10,000 containers — the equivalent of 10,000 individual truck loads or 100 train trips. Trucking cargo 160 kilometers overland from Fujairah to Dubai costs more per container than direct maritime delivery. The Fujairah bypass reduces UAE trade’s exposure to Hormuz closure, but it does not replicate maritime economics. That is why logistics analysts describe the new port as a resilience asset for disruption periods rather than a lower-cost routing alternative for normal operations.