AD Ports Group began trial operations at its Noatum Ports – Safaga Terminal on Egypt’s Red Sea coast on Tuesday, ahead of a full launch later this year. The 810,000-square-metre multipurpose terminal carries a 1,000-metre quay wall and is designed to handle up to 450,000 TEUs alongside 5 million tonnes of dry bulk, 1 million tonnes of liquid bulk and 50,000 car-equivalent units of Ro-Ro cargo. The facility is the first internationally operated port serving Upper Egypt.
Lt Gen Kamel El-Wazir, Egypt’s Minister of Transport, toured the site with Captain Mohamed Juma Al Shamisi, AD Ports’ Managing Director and Group CEO. The terminal sits on a 30-year concession signed in 2023 with Egypt’s Red Sea Ports Authority. The project anchors the Red Sea end of Egypt’s Safaga-Qena-Abu Tartour logistics corridor and the proposed Southern Arab Trade Corridor. It is also one piece of a wider Abu Dhabi push into Egyptian ports at a moment when the Strait of Hormuz remains closed amid the Iran war.
First Vessels Pull In at Safaga
Trial operations opened with the berthing of two named vessels. The UGR Al Samha arrived from the Port of Singapore with 5,000 vehicles, marking the terminal’s first Ro-Ro call. The Sven Prosper followed from King Abdullah Port on the Red Sea with 2,642 TEUs, the facility’s first container move. El-Wazir and Al Shamisi walked the berth to review the operational systems and workflows ahead of full commissioning.
We commend the productive partnership with AD Ports Group to deliver a range of strategic maritime port projects along the Red Sea, as well as across various sectors of the maritime transport industry.
Al Shamisi framed the launch as a step inside AD Ports’ wider network. Egypt is “one of the Group’s most important international markets,” he said, and a “major trade gateway” within a system spanning Asia, the Middle East, Africa and South America. The terminal’s first wave of cargo showed the facility already moving cars and containers in parallel. The three ship-to-shore cranes and six hybrid rubber-tyred gantry yard cranes that will handle them arrived on site in April 2026.
What the Terminal Will Move
The Noatum Ports – Safaga Terminal is the multipurpose heart of the planned Greater Safaga Port programme. The site is engineered to handle four very different cargo streams without one starving the others. Container yard work, dry bulk handling, liquid bulk storage and Ro-Ro ramps are all built into the master plan.
The 810,000-square-metre site carries a 1,000-metre dedicated quay wall, the bulk of a 1,100-metre quay AD Ports is developing at Safaga, with a 17-metre draft. Container yard work is supported by three ship-to-shore cranes and six hybrid rubber-tyred gantry cranes, delivered to the site in April 2026. The handling design lets the terminal flex between bulk and unitised cargo as demand shifts. AD Ports’ own February announcement on the financing put the build cost at $200 million over three years, with capacity set to roughly quadruple in containers and general cargo at full build-out.
- 810,000 m²: terminal footprint
- 1,000 m: dedicated quay wall
- 450,000 TEUs: annual container capacity, expandable to 2 million
- 5 million tonnes: dry bulk and general cargo annually
- 1 million tonnes: liquid bulk annually
- 50,000 CEUs: Ro-Ro vehicles per year
A $200 Million Build Backed by IFC and NBK Egypt
AD Ports is funding the build with a mix of equity and multilateral-backed debt. In February 2026, the group closed a $115 million project finance facility led by the International Finance Corporation, the World Bank’s private-sector arm. National Bank of Kuwait – Egypt joined the lending group, with additional institutional investors routed through IFC’s co-lending portfolio. The facility carries a 15-year tenor and was arranged to reach financial close in the first quarter of 2026.
AD Ports first committed the $200 million envelope when it signed the definitive 30-year concession in December 2023, sanctioned under an Egyptian commitment-contract law passed that November. White & Case, the legal advisor on the financing, detailed the project finance structure behind the deal, which links IFC’s A loan and B2 loan through a common terms agreement. Egypt’s Red Sea Ports Authority holds a direct step-in right if the operator defaults, an unusual level of creditor protection for a port concession in the region.
Why the Golden Triangle Needed a Port
The terminal’s commercial logic runs through the Golden Triangle Economic Zone. The zone stretches across the governorates of Qena, Sohag and the Red Sea, set up to draw investment into mining, agriculture and tourism. Safaga sits at the Red Sea end of that triangle, roughly 60 kilometres south of Hurghada, and serves as its principal maritime front door.
Mining is the largest single bet. Egypt’s transport ministry is positioning the terminal as the export route for phosphate and other bulk minerals pulled from the upper valley. The Golden Triangle has already pulled in a major Chinese chemicals investor: in January, Xingfa chemicals group announced plans to invest $2 billion in phosphate exploration projects in the zone. The terminal is the most direct seaborne outlet for those volumes. The ministry is also pitching the site to draw industrial, logistics, warehousing, processing and assembly investment into Upper Egypt.
On the land side, the terminal feeds into the Safaga-Qena-Abu Tartour logistics corridor, one of eight international corridors Egypt has been developing under its national logistics plan. The corridor links the port to inland industrial zones and mining areas. Egypt wants to climb from its current 19th-place global ranking in international trade connectivity to the top 15 by 2030, and new port capacity is one of the levers it is using to make that jump, alongside rail upgrades and free-zone reforms.
A Red Sea Reshuffling as Hormuz Stays Shut
The trial operations arrive in a Red Sea trade map that looks different from the one AD Ports signed into in 2023. The Strait of Hormuz, the Gulf’s main oil and goods chokepoint, has been closed for stretches of the war that began in late February 2026. Egypt’s transport ministry says the country’s ports handled 11.1 million TEUs in 2025, up 24.3 percent year on year, with transit container traffic up 36 percent. Egyptian officials link much of that growth to companies routing around the closed waterway.
Safaga sits more than 1,000 kilometres west of Hormuz, on the Red Sea coast. Vessels that cannot transit the Gulf can still move cargo in and out through the Red Sea, with Egyptian ports as a working alternative. That is the slot AD Ports’ terminal is filling. Al Shamisi’s line that the site “reinforces our position as an enabler of trade across key waterways” reads as a positioning statement for that rerouted traffic. The terminal is also wired into the proposed Southern Arab Trade Corridor, designed to link Gulf markets with Europe through Egyptian Mediterranean ports, Safaga, NEOM and Jeddah. The same dynamic is also visible on the air side, with Saudi airports absorbing Iran reroute traffic as Gulf carriers look for alternatives.
AD Ports’ Wider Egypt Footprint
Safaga is the headline, but it is far from AD Ports’ only Egyptian bet. The Abu Dhabi-listed group has been stacking assets up and down Egypt’s coast for the past two years. The aim, by Al Shamisi’s repeated framing, is to make Egypt a “major trade gateway” inside a network spanning Asia, the Middle East, Africa and South America.
The wider portfolio includes cruise terminals, an industrial park, a ferry link and a container-handling takeover. Cruise services have already started at AD Ports’ three Egyptian cruise terminals in Sharm El Sheikh, Hurghada and Safaga. The group has also enabled ferry services between Safaga and NEOM, in Saudi Arabia, to move Hajj workers between the two countries. On the Mediterranean side, AD Ports is developing the 20-square-kilometre KEZAD East Port Said Industrial and Logistics Park at the Suez Canal’s northern mouth, a project that sits inside the same Suez Canal Economic Zone that has drawn Egypt and Qatar’s $200M green jet fuel plant.
- Noatum Ports – Safaga Terminal: trial operations June 9, 2026
- Cruise terminals: Sharm El Sheikh, Hurghada, Safaga
- Safaga-NEOM Hajj ferry service: linking Egypt and Saudi Arabia
- KEZAD East Port Said: 20 km² industrial and logistics park, Suez Canal
- Alexandria Container & Cargo Handling (ALCN): 19.3% stake for $279 million, November 2025; majority bid pending
The largest of those moves is the ALCN deal. In November 2025, AD Ports spent 13.2 billion Egyptian pounds, equal to $279 million, for a 19.3% stake in Alexandria Container & Cargo Handling Company, one of Egypt’s two main container terminal operators. The group has since launched a mandatory tender offer that would give it a majority stake. ALCN runs terminals at Alexandria and El-Dekheila, which handle Mediterranean traffic. Tying Safaga’s Red Sea volumes to ALCN’s Mediterranean terminals gives AD Ports a coast-to-coast claim on Egypt’s container flows. Al Shamisi said AD Ports expects the full operational launch of the Safaga terminal later this year, the first of the group’s Egypt projects to start full commercial service.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the Noatum Ports – Safaga Terminal?
A multipurpose port terminal on Egypt’s Red Sea coast, in the city of Safaga roughly 60 kilometres south of Hurghada. AD Ports Group is building and operating it under a 30-year concession signed with Egypt’s Red Sea Ports Authority. The facility spans 810,000 square metres and is designed to handle containers, dry and liquid bulk, and Ro-Ro cargo.
When will the Safaga terminal be fully operational?
AD Ports has said full operations will begin later this year. Trial operations began on June 9, 2026, with the first two commercial vessels, the UGR Al Samha from Singapore and the Sven Prosper from King Abdullah Port, calling at the terminal on the same day.
Who is financing the Safaga terminal?
AD Ports is funding the $200 million build with a mix of equity and a $115 million project finance facility. The facility was finalised in February 2026, led by the International Finance Corporation with National Bank of Kuwait – Egypt and other institutional investors, and carries a 15-year tenor.
How does the Strait of Hormuz closure tie into this?
The Strait of Hormuz has been disrupted since the start of the Iran war in late February 2026, pushing companies to look for alternative routes to move cargo in and out of the Gulf region. Egypt’s ports, including the new Safaga terminal, sit on the Red Sea side of the rerouting path. The transport ministry says Egyptian ports handled 11.1 million TEUs in 2025, up 24.3 percent year on year, with transit container traffic up 36 percent.
