Port of Bosaso (Dekedda Boosaaso)

At a glance

• Where: Bosaso, the commercial city of Puntland, on the Gulf of Aden. Wikipedia classes it as a major port (Wikipedia, Port of Bosaso).
• Operator: P&O Ports, part of DP World of Dubai, under a 30-year concession signed in April 2017 (WAM, April 2017).
• Hinterland: the World Bank wrote in 2019 that the Port of Bosaso handled the cargo demand of Puntland, and that the smaller ports of Bosaso and Kismayo are run by local port authorities (World Bank, Country and Port Fact Sheets, 2019).
• Main trade: livestock and seafood exports and imports of food, fuel and building goods, as for Somali ports in general (World Bank, 2019).
• For the other Somali ports and the 2026 dispute over UAE agreements, see Somalia's seaports.

Building the port

Bosaso has long been a trading harbour on the northern coast; see Galkayo and the Bosaso trade corridor. The modern port was built in the mid-1980s by the Siad Barre government for yearly livestock shipments to the Middle East (Wikipedia; Istanbul conference on Somalia, 2010, transport paper). The Garowe–Bosaso highway, about 450 km long, was built in the same period and finished with tarmac in 1990, linking the port to the south (Wikipedia).

Renovation, 2012

The P&O Ports concession, 2017

• 6 April 2017: in Dubai, Puntland President Abdiweli Mohamed Ali "Gaas" signed a 30-year concession with P&O Ports to manage and develop a multipurpose port. The investment was put at $336 million. The plan was a 450-metre quay, a 5-hectare back-up area, dredging to 12 metres, land reclamation with the dredged sand, a terminal operating system, mobile harbour cranes and container equipment (WAM; Gulf News).
• 12 October 2017: Puntland handed the port over to P&O Ports at a ceremony in Bosaso. Garowe Online reported that local traders had complained that sand building up on the shore was blocking large container ships from the port's narrow access lanes (Garowe Online, October 2017).

The 2019 attack

On 4 February 2019 the head of P&O Ports' operations in Bosaso, a Maltese citizen, was shot dead by gunmen on his way to work, and port guards were wounded. Al-Shabaab claimed the attack (BBC News, February 2019; New York Times).

The DP World expansion deal, 2022

On 8 December 2022 in Dubai, Puntland's Minister of Ports and Maritime Transport, Ahmed Yaasiin Saalah, and DP World signed an agreement to expand the port. The plan, to start in early 2023 and take 12 months, is:

• a new 150-metre quay, and repairs to the existing 215-metre quay;
• a 3,000 m² container yard and a 4,000 m² container stripping yard;
• an upgraded port gate.

The stated aim was to let container ships, especially feeder services from Dubai and other regional hubs, call directly at Bosaso (Maritim Africa, December 2022; inforMARE, December 2022).

Undersea cables

The PEACE, DARE1 and G2A submarine cables land at Bosaso, according to the National Communications Authority (NCA). See Telecoms and internet.

Related

• Bosaso Airport
• Port of Berbera
• Livestock exports
• Puntland institutions