Port of Berbera (Dekedda Berbera)

At a glance

• Where: Berbera, on the Gulf of Aden, in Somaliland. Wikipedia classes it as a major port in Somalia (Wikipedia, Port of Berbera).
• Owner: the Berbera Port Authority (BPA), a parastatal body that the World Bank in 2019 described as falling directly under the presidency of Somaliland (World Bank, Country and Port Fact Sheets, 2019).
• Operator: DP World of Dubai, under a 30-year concession signed in 2016 (Wall Street Journal, May 2016).
• Model: the World Bank describes Berbera as a "landlord port": BPA manages the port, while DP World runs the cargo handling and equipment (World Bank, 2019).
• Website: dpworldberbera.com.
• For the other Somali ports and the 2026 dispute over UAE agreements, see Somalia's seaports.

Earlier history

Berbera was a trading harbour long before the modern port; see Early Berbera before 1300 and British Somaliland 1884 to 1960.

After a 1962 agreement between the Somali Republic and the Soviet Union, the port's facilities were upgraded and used by the Soviets, and it served as a naval and missile base for the Somali government. When Somalia turned toward the United States, the port was expanded for US military use (Wikipedia; The Rise and Fall of Détente).

Cement terminal, 2013

In July 2013 Raysut Cement of Oman announced a cement terminal at Berbera, built as a joint venture with Somali partners, with three silos of 4,000 tonnes each for storing, packing and distributing cement (Global Cement).

The DP World concession

• May 2016: DP World signed a $442 million agreement with the government of Somaliland to run a regional trade and logistics hub at Berbera for 30 years, to be built in phases and to include a free zone (Wall Street Journal; The National).
• The World Bank wrote in 2019 that DP World would set up a joint venture with 65% control together with the Somaliland government, and that the main terms of the agreement were not made public (World Bank, 2019).
• 1 March 2018: DP World announced that Ethiopia had acquired a 19% stake, leaving DP World with 51% and Somaliland with 30%. Ethiopia was to invest in the Berbera Corridor as a trade route for the inland country (DP World, March 2018).
• April 2018: Somalia's foreign minister said DP World should rethink its port deals in Somalia (Reuters via New York Times, April 2018). Wikipedia records that the Somaliland opposition party Waddani also questioned the agreement.
• 2022: Wikipedia reports that Somaliland officials said Ethiopia had lost its 19% stake for not meeting the conditions, leaving DP World with 51% and Somaliland with 49% (Wikipedia).

The 2021 container terminal

DP World and Somaliland opened the new container terminal in June 2021. It has a 400-metre berth and three ship-to-shore gantry cranes, with capacity for 500,000 TEU (twenty-foot containers) a year (Dubai Media Office, 24 June 2021; AJOT; VOA). Wikipedia's page on the new port gives the inauguration as 24 July 2021, attended by President Muse Bihi Abdi, DP World chairman Sultan Ahmed bin Sulayem and an Ethiopian delegation (Wikipedia, DP World Berbera New Port).

Cargo figures, 2012 to 2016

The World Bank fact sheet (2019) gives these figures for the port before the new terminal:

• 2016 capacity: 130,000 TEU of containers; 3,000,000 tonnes of multipurpose cargo, against 1,859,056 tonnes handled; 217,759 tonnes of liquid bulk through the oil terminal, a single-point mooring with 8.5 m draught.
• Quay: a 650 m multipurpose quay with 9.8 m draught.
• Transit: in 2016 all cargo was for Somaliland, with no Ethiopian transit.
• Forecast: total cargo was projected to rise from 3.0 million tonnes in 2016 to 18.1 million tonnes in 2050, with dry bulk the largest share, then containers, and livestock the main export (all from World Bank, 2019).

Dry ports and the Berbera Corridor

The Berbera Corridor road links the port to Hargeisa, then to Tog Wajaale on the Ethiopian border. Container yards (dry ports) operate on the Hargeisa bypass road, 22 km from the city centre, and at Tog Wajaale (Wikipedia, DP World Berbera New Port; Cambridge University Press, The Berbera Corridor Development). See Ethiopia–Somaliland border trade.

Related

• Berbera Airport
• Port of Djibouti, the main competing route for Ethiopian cargo
• Somaliland's economy
• Livestock exports
• UAE military in Somalia