Kuwait City— While the region swayed with geopolitical earthquakes, the Kuwait Ports Authority stunned the nation on national supply chains last Friday. Summoning his senior officials, Ministry of Commerce and Industry officials, department heads, and emergency-response officers in a crisis June 14 meeting, Director General Sheikh Khaled Salem Abdulaziz Al-Sabah charged them to prepare contingency plans against the ongoing war between Israel and Iran.
Guiding Kuwait’s lifeline are its three premier commercial gateways—Shuwaikh, Shuaiba, and Doha—which collectively receive everything from life-critical medicines to daily staples. Shuwaikh Port, Kuwait’s bustling trade hub since 1977, spans an expanse of 2.2 million m² and has 21 berths with the capacity to receive more than 631,000 twenty-foot containers (TEUs) per year. Shuaiba Port, handed over to KPA administration in 1986, caters to Kuwait’s heavy industry, with raw materials, chemicals, and gigantic equipment coming in on the 1.9 million m² dockyard. Doha Port—Kuwait’s picturesque “mini-port”—hails coastal traffic with nine piers excised on the western bank of Kuwait Bay, its 4.3 m depth a perfect fit for barges of the GCC-bound variety and smaller ships.
Stockpiling for security
Identifying food and medicine as “non-negotiable national assets,” Sheikh Khaled proposed a program to fill strategic reserves at all three ports, loading refrigerated storage warehouses and dry-goods silos in the event of any crisis. As two-thirds of Kuwaiti food came in by sea, even brief disruptions would ripple onto supermarket shelves within hours of a single evening.
A Legacy of Maritime Resilience
Kuwait’s seaport tradition dates back to the late 1700s, when East India Company frigates and dhow pearl-fishing vessels first made port on its shore, opening up trading routes to Baghdad, Aleppo, and beyond. This nautical ethos is what informs emergency training these days: simulated diversion of ships, swift-response fire brigades, and electronic sweeps of traffic against cyberattacks.
Looking Towards the Horizon
Aside from crisis management, the KPA already looks forward to “New Kuwait 2035.” The Mubarak Al Kabeer Port, set to rise on Bubiyan Island as part of China’s Belt and Road and Kuwait Vision 2035, will feature 24 berths with a capacity of 8.1 million TEU, transforming the Gulf into a logistics superpower.
As the clouds gather over the region, Kuwait’s ports serve as a crucial barrier, safeguarding the country’s narrow borders today and paving the way for future maritime aspirations.
