France's CMA CGM and Oman's Asyad Group have formed a partnership to develop a logistics terminal worth $400 million at Sohar, the Omani port that has become an alternative route for Persian Gulf trade during the Iran war.
The framework agreement, signed during a visit by Oman's Sultan Haitham bin Tarik to France, calls for CMA CGM and Asyad, "to develop, manage, and operate a multipurpose logistics terminal in Sohar," the shipping and logistics companies said in a statement.
The future terminal would support "reliable inland access to key trade corridors" as well as "greater resilience and efficiency for our customers’ supply chains," CMA CGM Chairman and CEO Rodolphe Saade was quoted as saying in the statement.
Faced with the disruption to the Strait of Hormuz during the Middle East war, CMA CGM like other shipping firms has developed land connections linking gulf destinations with ports outside the strait.
Transits through the strait have picked up since the signing of an initial US-Iran peace deal earlier this month, though tit-for-tat strikes by the two sides have maintained uncertainty over security in the waterway through which a large share of global oil, gas and fertiliser trade usually passes.
CMA CGM, the world's third-largest container line, said on Sunday that its Galapagos container ship had exited the Strait of Hormuz, with 10 of the firm's ships still stuck inside the gulf since the start of the Iran war.
(Reporting by Gianluca Lo Nostro and Gus Trompiz; Editing by Louise Heavens and Andrea Ricci)