Posted on January 19, 2026
As the Suez Canal expects to bring back more commercial traffic via the Red Sea in 2026, a new port terminal is welcoming more container vessels.
Developed by a consortium of Hutchison Ports, CMA CGM and Cosco Shipping Ports, Red Sea Container Terminals (RSCT) hosted its grand opening Friday, marking Egypt’s first semi-automated container terminal. RSCT is operating the new terminal under a 30-year concession agreement with the Egyptian government signed in March 2023.
The fully electric terminal is stationed at Ain Sokhna Port, the largest port on the Red Sea, near the southern entrance of the Suez Canal.
“This historic project, realized through our $1.8 billion investment in Egypt over the past two decades, reflects our dedication to fostering sustainable economic growth, operational excellence, and trade diversification in Egypt and beyond,” said Hutchison Ports in a statement on LinkedIn.
According to the statement, the terminal will have an initial handling capability of 1.7 million 20-foot equivalent units (TEUs), with plans to scale up to 3.5 million TEUs to meet growing trade demands. It includes four berths with a roughly 3,900-foot quay length, as well as a 59-foot draft capable of accommodating mega-container vessels. Additionally, the hub includes a 178-acre container yard.
The terminal has a total of six remote-controlled post-Panamax ship-to-shore (STS) cranes and 18 rubber-tired gantry (RTG) cranes. The cranes were provided by Chinese heavy-equipment manufacturer Shanghai Zhenhua Heavy Industries Co., Ltd. (ZPMC).
The STS cranes are designed to handle ultra-large container vessels with a cargo capacity of over 10,000 TEUs, significantly enhancing container turnover speed and terminal efficiency. The RTGs operate autonomously within the container yard using smart systems to precisely position and arrange containers, and are designed to minimize human error and boost performance.
Operations are managed through a terminal operating system that uses GPS and RFID technology to track and organize containers in real time. Additionally, the terminal will host two x-ray scanners that can scan at least 80 containers per hour, as well as electric-powered trucks supplied by autonomous trucking provider Westwell and reach stackers aimed at driving greener operations and reducing carbon emissions.
Hutchison invested $700 million across the Sokhna Port project and another container terminal, B100, at Egypt’s Alexandria Port. Cosco Shipping is investing $375 million in the Red Sea terminal, taking a 25 percent stake in the deal. It is unclear how much CMA CGM invested in the gateway.
The terminal is set to align with Egypt’s Vision 2030 ambitions, which include a goal to foster an integrated and sustainable ecosystem. Established in 2016, the sustainable development program set a 2030 target to cut countrywide greenhouse gas emissions by 10 percent.
The launch comes one month after the terminal began trial operations, with the CMA CGM Helium becoming the first vessel to dock there after sailing from Singapore. The grand opening coincided with another docking of the CMA CGM Iron, which arrived from Beirut carrying roughly 13,000 containers.
The opening of the gateway adds container capacity to an area that is expected to see more cargo flow as ocean carriers return to the Red Sea amid more stability in the region. For two years, major container shipping companies avoided the waterway and the Suez Canal due to continued attacks by Houthi militants in the area, instead opting to sail around southern Africa’s Cape of Good Hope.
The Yemeni terrorist organization suspended the onslaught after Israel and Hamas agreed to a ceasefire to their conflict in Gaza.
Maersk unveiled Thursday that it was returning to the Suez Canal via its India-to-U.S. MECL service line, which marks the company’s first weekly loop that would traverse the Red Sea in two years.
The Danish container shipping company followed in the footsteps of CMA CGM, which has always had a light presence in the waterway throughout the crisis with assistance from the French Navy and operated the ships making its stops at the new Red Sea terminal. CMA CGM’s own Indamex service connecting India and the U.S. returned the Suez Canal opened back up this week.
According to Drewry, CMA CGM, subsidiary APL and Mediterranean Shipping Company (MSC) sent five 8,000-TEU containerships through the Suez Canal in the second week of the year.
“We have already seen how CMA CGM has gradually switched more and more of their services to the Suez routing over the past 12 months and with Maersk now permanently switching a service, all carriers will be looking and considering their next moves,” said Lars Jensen, CEO of Vespucci Maritime, in a Friday update on LinkedIn. “If conditions remain peaceful it might now be realistic to see a wider scale beginning to a switch-over for more carriers in the period after Chinese New Year.”
