DP World appoints new Group ceo, reports 2015 traffic growth

News of the added responsibility for Bin Sulayem, who has chaired the group since 2007, coincided with release of DP World’s 2015 traffic results which showed that like-for-like gross throughput for the year had grown at 2.4%, a slowdown from the 8% increase of the previous year due to the faltering global economy.

Bin Sulayem referred to a “difficult” second half when “various economic headwinds including currency weakness and lower commodity prices adversely impacted trade growth.” In Q4 particularly, like-for-like gross throughput was flat.

“Against this challenging backdrop, all our three regions continued to deliver full year volume growth on a like-for-like basis which demonstrates the strength of our portfolio,” pointed out Bin Sulayem. Strongest performers were terminals in Europe and the UAE, which together delivered like-for-like growth of 2.3% for the year, totalling 15.6m teu.

Total gross throughput was 61.7m teu, compared with 59.8m teu in 2014 (+3%), including new capacity at Yarimca (Turkey), Stuttgart (Germany), Rotterdam (Netherlands) and Prince Rupert (Canada).

“As we look ahead into 2016, we look forward to the new capacity to deliver a full year contribution to our throughput,” added the DP World chairman and group ceo. “We expect to open our third berth at London Gateway in mid-2016, adding 600k teu of new capacity. The additional 2m teu at terminal three (T3) Jebel Ali will now be operational in the second half of 2016.”

“DP World has once again delivered ahead of market throughput growth in 2015 and given this resilient performance, we remain confident of meeting full year market expectations,” he concluded. “While trading conditions in 2016 are expected to remain challenging, we believe a portfolio focused towards faster growing markets and origin and destination cargo, coupled with the addition of new capacity can continue to outperform the market.”

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