Ocean Oct 20, 2026 · 8 min read

Aqaba’s Iraq surge is mostly grain, and the container part still matters

Aqaba’s 46-fold jump is grain. The box story is 2.5 times, and that is still big. Transit cargo at Jordan’s Aqaba port hit 1.8m tonnes in January to September 2026, up from 38,900 tonnes a year earlier, Splash reported. Grain made up 1.67m tonnes of that. In our view the real signal for forwarders is smaller and more lasting. Transit containers rose 151.8% to 115,762. Many are boxes that would normally discharge at Iraq’s Gulf ports, now trucked about 760km from Aqaba into Iraq. The road leg is the limit, not the quay. Our call: Aqaba’s full-year 2026 transit count passes 150,000 containers.

Aqaba has become Iraq’s back door. The headline is grain, the lasting change is boxes on trucks
Transit cargo through Jordan’s Aqaba multipurpose port reached 1.8m tonnes in the first nine months of 2026. A year earlier the figure was 38,900 tonnes. That is almost a 46-fold rise. Splash reported the numbers on 20 October, citing the Aqaba Development Corporation, the state body that runs the port zone.
“Transit cargo” means goods landed in Jordan but headed somewhere else. Here, much of it is headed for Iraq. With shipping through the Strait of Hormuz badly disrupted since the Iran war began in late February, Iraq has had to find another way in.
Our view is simple. The 46-fold number is real, but it is a grain story. The part that matters most to forwarders is the container trade, which grew about two and a half times. That is less dramatic, but it is a route forwarders can book today, and the strain is building on the road, not at the quay.

What the figures actually say

Start with the split. Of the 1.8m tonnes of transit cargo, grain made up 1.67m tonnes, according to the Splash report. The year before, transit grain was zero. Take the grain out and the rest of the transit cargo is roughly 130,000 tonnes. That is our arithmetic from the published figures, and it is still a big jump on 38,900 tonnes, but it is nowhere near 46 times.
Officials also have not established how much of the growth is down to the Hormuz crisis, Splash noted. Some of the grain may reflect Iraqi buying patterns or harvest timing as much as the war. We do not know, and nobody has published a breakdown.
The container numbers are clearer. Transit containers at Aqaba rose 151.8% to 115,762 in the nine months, per the same figures. Containers that would normally discharge at Iraq’s Gulf ports, such as Basra, are instead unloaded at Aqaba. They then go about 760km east by truck into Iraq.
Other numbers point the same way. Overall throughput at the multipurpose port rose 63.6%, and oil terminal volumes rose 39.3%, Splash reported. Vehicle storage space was expanded from 6,000 to 17,000 units. That matters for Ro-Ro, the roll-on, roll-off ships that carry cars and trucks.
Earlier data from the summer showed the trend building. Food Business MEA reported on 10 September that transit containers through Aqaba rose from 30,763 in the first seven months of 2025 to 80,235 in the same period of 2026, citing the Jordan Shipping Association. Containers bound for Iraq rose from 3,599 to 37,182, a 933.1% increase. Reefer transit containers, the refrigerated boxes used for food and medicine, rose 546.8%.
If the seven-month and nine-month figures count the same way, about 35,500 transit containers moved in August and September alone. That would be faster than the monthly pace earlier in the year. We would treat that with care, because the two numbers come from different bodies. But nothing in the data suggests the flow is slowing.

Why the road is the bottleneck

A port can add berths and yard space faster than a country can add trucks, drivers and border capacity. Aqaba’s own numbers show this.
Food Business MEA reported that truck movements through the Karama–Trebil crossing, the main road border between Jordan and Iraq, rose 131.2%, from 99,491 to 229,997. Loaded trucks leaving Jordan for Iraq rose 148.9%. Every one of those containers has to cross that border on a truck.
Drivers are feeling it. One Jordanian trucker, Moussa Abu Abdeh, told Reuters in September that he used to get one or two transport orders a month and now gets three, four or five. “Before (the closure of) the Strait of Hormuz, we hardly had any work,” he said.
The terminal side is busy but coping. Angshuman Mustafi, chief commercial officer at Aqaba Container Terminal, told Reuters: “If we talk about container trade, we have grown easily by 5%, and the growth is driven by the volumes”. The terminal said in July that transit volumes rose 155.1% in the first half of 2026. Put those two together and the picture is clear. Transit is a fast-growing slice of a terminal whose total box trade is only up modestly. The quay has room. The 760km road does not grow as easily.
Jordan knows this. Prime Minister Jafar Hassan has ordered faster work on port expansion and modernisation, Splash reported. He also stressed the planned Aqaba–Shidiya–Ma’an railway and a new inland dry port at Ma’an. A dry port is an inland terminal where boxes can be cleared and stored away from the coast. Separately, Jordan’s transport and labour minister has put the Aqaba Port Railway Project, a Jordan–UAE venture, at about US$2.3bn, nearly 360km long, with capacity of up to 16m tonnes a year, according to Food Business MEA. Rail on that scale will not carry Iraq’s boxes this year or next. For now, trucks do the work.

Hormuz is still not a normal option

The reason all this matters is that the direct route is still unreliable. Lloyd’s List Intelligence said in its 30 September brief that September was on track to be the busiest month for Hormuz traffic since the conflict began, outside a memorandum-of-understanding period in June. But it also said there had been only 15 containership transits in September so far, with AD Ports-linked feeders, the small ships that shuttle boxes on short regional runs, behind the growth. It wrote that “major lines continue to avoid the area”.
The same brief said the threat to commercial shipping remains severe, and cited the Joint Maritime Information Center’s view that deliberate hostile action is highly likely. It said a Kuwait Oil Tanker Company-managed tanker was struck by a suspected projectile on 28 September. On talks, it reported that Iran said no new round was planned.
On 8 October, AAP reported Kpler data showing just seven commodity vessels crossed the strait on the Tuesday of that week, the lowest since 23 July. Before the war, about 125 large commercial ships passed through daily, the same report said.
Iraq’s own numbers show the damage. Shafaq News reported in May that Iraq’s Oil Ministry put oil exports through Hormuz at 10 million barrels in April, against about 93 million barrels a month before the war. The same report described food and industrial goods for Iraq arriving at Aqaba, including 100,000 tonnes of vegetable oils.
Aqaba also has its own risks. In July, The National reported that the US embassy in Amman warned of a “specific and credible” threat to the port and the airport next to it. Jordanian authorities said operations were normal. Reuters has reported that Iran has repeatedly struck military sites in Jordan. Forwarders should not treat the Red Sea end of this route as risk-free.

What it means for forwarders and shippers

First, the Aqaba route to Iraq is now proven. It is not a contingency plan on a slide. Tens of thousands of containers have used it this year. If you have Iraq-bound cargo, quoting it via Aqaba is a normal option, not an exotic one.
Second, price and plan for the road, not the sea. The ocean leg into Aqaba runs through the Red Sea and Suez or round the Cape, depending on origin. That has its own costs. But the variable that will move most in the coming months is the truck leg: driver availability, border queues at Karama–Trebil, and paperwork on the Iraqi side. Build in buffer days on the inland leg.
Third, separate bulk from boxes when you read the headlines. Grain flows can swing hard from season to season. A big drop in grain tonnage next year would not mean the container corridor has failed. Watch the transit container count, not the tonnage.
Fourth, this may outlast the war. Mashhoor Al Jazy, a spokesman for the Jordan Shipping Association, told Reuters: “This could become a permanent route, and not just a temporary one.” We think he is partly right. Once Iraqi importers have built supplier, broker and trucking relationships through Jordan, some of that trade will stay, even if Hormuz reopens. The 760km road is long, but it avoids a chokepoint that has shown it can close for months. Shippers who were burned this year will want a second route.
Fifth, expect competition for the same trucks. Reuters reported that traders have also looked at routes via Syria. Jordan’s own import and export cargo needs trucks too. When a lane grows this fast, the first thing to tighten is usually haulage capacity, and that shows up in rates and waiting times before it shows up in port statistics.

Our prediction

We expect the Aqaba Development Corporation’s full-year 2026 figures, likely published early next year, to show more than 150,000 transit containers. That is roughly the nine-month pace of about 12,900 a month carried through December, and it assumes Hormuz stays closed to the major container lines through year-end, which is how things stand now.
We also expect the first public sign of strain to come from the road, not the port. Within the next three months, we think Jordanian or Iraqi officials will announce new steps at the Karama–Trebil crossing, such as longer opening hours, extra lanes or faster customs checks, to keep transit trucks moving. If they do not, forwarders should expect longer waits on the inland leg as volumes keep climbing.

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