The Port of Aqaba is the only

port A port is a maritime facility comprising one or more wharves or loading areas, where ships load and discharge cargo and passengers. Although usually situated on a sea coast or estuary, ports can also be found far inland, such as Ham ...

Jordan Jordan ( ar, الأردن; tr. ' ), officially the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan,; tr. ' is a country in Western Asia. It is situated at the crossroads of Asia, Africa, and Europe, within the Levant region, on the East Bank of the Jordan Rive ...

, and is owned by Aqaba Development Corporation (ADC) and has 12 terminals operated by five operators: the Aqaba Company for port management and operation; Aqaba Container Terminal; Industrial Port Company; phosphate Company; National Electricity power Company, and the pilotage operated by Aqaba Port Marine Services Company .

History

Aqaba Aqaba (, also ; ar, العقبة, al-ʿAqaba, al-ʿAgaba, ) is the only coastal city in Jordan and the largest and most populous city on the Gulf of Aqaba. Situated in southernmost Jordan, Aqaba is the administrative centre of the Aqaba Govern ...

has been a major

since the

Iron Age The Iron Age is the final epoch of the three-age division of the prehistory and protohistory of humanity. It was preceded by the Stone Age (Paleolithic, Mesolithic, Neolithic) and the Bronze Age (Chalcolithic). The concept has been mostly appl ...

. The Bible refers to the area in (1 Kings 9:26): "

King Solomon King is the title given to a male monarch in a variety of contexts. The female equivalent is queen, which title is also given to the consort of a king. *In the context of prehistory, antiquity and contemporary indigenous peoples, the tit ...

also built ships in

Ezion-Geber Ezion-Geber ( Ancient: ''Ġeṣyōn Geḇer''; also Asiongaber) is a city only known from the Hebrew Bible, in Idumea, a seaport on the northern extremity of the Gulf of Aqaba, in modern terms somewhere in the area of modern Aqaba and Eilat. Acco ...

, which is near

Eloth Elath (; la, Aila; grc, Ελά, Ἀηλά, Αἴλανα, Αἰλανίτης, Αἰλανή, Ἐλάνα, Αἴλανον, Αἰλάς, Αἰλάθ, Αἰλών, Ἡλάθ, Αϊλά), or Eloth, was an ancient city mentioned in several places in ...

Edom Edom (; Edomite: ; he, אֱדוֹם , lit.: "red"; Akkadian: , ; Ancient Egyptian: ) was an ancient kingdom in Transjordan, located between Moab to the northeast, the Arabah to the west, and the Arabian Desert to the south and east.N ...

, on the shores of the

Red Sea The Red Sea ( ar, البحر الأحمر - بحر القلزم, translit=Modern: al-Baḥr al-ʾAḥmar, Medieval: Baḥr al-Qulzum; or ; Coptic: ⲫⲓⲟⲙ ⲛ̀ϩⲁϩ ''Phiom Enhah'' or ⲫⲓⲟⲙ ⲛ̀ϣⲁⲣⲓ ''Phiom ǹšari''; T ...

," in which Eloth refers to a port on the grounds of Aqaba. The Aqaba port was particularly important after the

Ottomans The Ottoman Turks ( tr, Osmanlı Türkleri), were the Turkic founding and sociopolitically the most dominant ethnic group of the Ottoman Empire ( 1299/1302–1922). Reliable information about the early history of Ottoman Turks remains scarce, ...

built the Hejaz railway, which connects the port to

Damascus )), is an adjective which means "spacious". , motto = , image_flag = Flag of Damascus.svg , image_seal = Emblem of Damascus.svg , seal_type = Seal , map_caption = , ...

and

Medina Medina,, ', "the radiant city"; or , ', (), "the city" officially Al Madinah Al Munawwarah (, , Turkish: Medine-i Münevvere) and also commonly simplified as Madīnah or Madinah (, ), is the Holiest sites in Islam, second-holiest city in Islam, ...

. Today, the economy of Aqaba is largely based around the port sector. Recently, an

Abu Dhabi Abu Dhabi (, ; ar, أَبُو ظَبْيٍ ' ) is the capital and second-most populous city (after Dubai) of the United Arab Emirates. It is also the capital of the Emirate of Abu Dhabi and the centre of the Abu Dhabi Metropolitan Area. ...

consortium of companies called ''Al Maabar'' has won the bid to relocate and manage the Aqaba port for 30 years and expand the existing ferry terminal which receives about 1.3 million passengers and thousands of trucks and cars coming from across the shore in Egypt.

Relocation

In 2006, the port was relocated from the city's centre to its south, due to a deeper water level there. Another relocation is also scheduled; it would place the port near the southernmost part of the province near the

Saudi Arabia Saudi Arabia, officially the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), is a country in Western Asia. It covers the bulk of the Arabian Peninsula, and has a land area of about , making it the fifth-largest country in Asia, the second-largest in the A ...

n border. Its capacity will surpass that of the current port. The project will cost US$5 billion, and it will be completed by 2014.

Aqaba container terminal

The port contains the Aqaba container terminal (ACT), Jordan's only container port, and the second-busiest facility on the Red Sea by container volume. The ACT is a logistics hub and an important part of the Jordanian economy. It is the primary gateway for the Jordanian market, and a crucial transit point for cargo moving between countries in the region. The ACT is a joint venture between Aqaba Development Corporation and APM Terminals under a 25-year build-operate-transfer agreement that was signed in 2006. A terminal expansion project completed in October 2013 added to the existing quay to create a total quay length of , increasing the annual container throughput capacity to 1.3million TEUs. The expansion program, begun in 2009, has included the delivery of two new ship-to-shore cranes with a 22 container row reach, and four

rubber tyred gantry crane A rubber tyred gantry crane / RTG (crane), or sometimes transtainer, is a wheeled mobile gantry crane operated to ground or stack intermodal containers. Inbound containers are stored for future pickup by drayage trucks, and outbound are stored f ...

s. In 2004, the Aqaba Development Corporation (ADC), on behalf of the Aqaba Special Economic Zone Authority (ASEZA), acquired and took over the management and operation of the terminal. In 2006, a 25-year Joint Development Agreement (JDA) was signed between ADC and ACT. Under this contract, APM Terminals Jordan is responsible for operating, managing and marketing ACT. In the 27 June 2022, at least 10 were killed and more than 251 injured by a ruptured tank containing 25 tons of chlorine that was dropped by a crane onto a ship.

References

{{authority control Aqaba