- Saudi mining giant Maaden scaled its overland truck convoy from 600 to 3,500 vehicles in weeks, moving phosphate fertilizer across Saudi Arabia to Red Sea ports — clearing an export backlog that analysts had feared could trigger a global food supply crisis.
- Khor Fakkan, a small UAE port on the Gulf of Oman, saw weekly container traffic explode from 2,000 to 50,000 since the war began, as it transformed overnight from a transshipment hub into a full gateway port — requiring 900 new hires in two weeks.
- Major shipping companies MSC and Maersk are trucking goods across the Arabian Peninsula; Etihad Rail moved Nissans by train for the first time; and a UAE supermarket chain sent British goods on a 16-day overland journey from Kent through Europe, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia to Dubai.
- The overland routes cannot replace maritime capacity or compete on cost, and cannot move jet fuel or most bulk energy — but they have acted as a critical shock absorber for food commodities and manufactured goods, helping contain the broader inflationary impact of the Hormuz closure.
What Happened?
When the US and Israel attacked Iran and the Strait of Hormuz shut down, Gulf nations faced an existential logistics challenge: decades of trade infrastructure had been optimized entirely around the strait. Within days, an improvised overland alternative began taking shape. Saudi Arabia activated its East-West highway network. The UAE’s Khor Fakkan port — previously a quiet transshipment hub — was hastily converted into a full-scale import gateway, with its operator Gulftainer hiring 900 people in two weeks and opening a new truck marshaling yard. Saudi Aramco leaned heavily on its East-West pipeline to Red Sea port Yanbu. Maaden CEO Bob Wilt mobilized 3,500 trucks running in round-the-clock shifts with two drivers each to move phosphate fertilizer westward. Analysts at CRU initially questioned whether any Saudi product would reach market; recent vessel tracking shows phosphate cargoes from Yanbu have now arrived in Djibouti, Thailand, and Argentina.
Why It Matters?
The improvised overland logistics network is one of the most underreported stories of the Iran war’s economic fallout — and one of the most important. The global economy’s resilience in the face of the Hormuz blockade has surprised nearly every forecaster, and the trucking convoys are a major reason why. By keeping phosphate fertilizer, consumer goods, and manufactured products flowing, Gulf governments have blunted the pressure on their own economies and reduced the leverage Iran’s blockade was designed to create. Every truck that makes it across the desert narrows the coercive power of a closed strait. The improvisation also has a geopolitical dimension: Saudi Arabia’s ability to demonstrate export reliability — even under wartime conditions — strengthens its case as a critical partner in Western supply chain diversification, particularly for rare earth refining and phosphate supply.
What’s Next?
Gulf governments are now moving from improvisation to institutionalization. Saudi Arabia and the UAE are exploring capacity expansions for their overland pipelines, new rail lines, and upgraded port infrastructure on non-Hormuz coastlines. Maaden’s Wilt said the crisis has permanently changed how the company thinks about export routing: “Let’s harden this and always have a route to the Red Sea.” The overland routes remain inefficient — many trucks return empty, and the economics only work because commodity prices are elevated — but the infrastructure investments being made now will outlast the current conflict. If the Hormuz blockade continues into summer, the pressure on these routes will intensify, particularly for energy products that cannot practically be trucked. But for the non-energy trade that runs through them, the Arabian desert has quietly become one of the most important logistics corridors in the world.
Source: The Wall Street Journal
