3 Mark Geilenkirchen
CEO, SOHAR Port and Freezone
Total employees: 120
Years in the company: Since June 2016
Year of establishment: 2001
Location of head office: SOHAR, Oman business offices in Dubai and Muscat
Joining SOHAR in June 2016, Mark Geilenkirchen is tasked with building on the success the port and freezone has experienced to date.
In addition to the three main pillars of logistics, metals and petrochemicals, SOHAR recently launched a fourth pillar: food, with work on a $170m Food Zone underway, combining the regions first dedicated agro terminal with rice, flour, and sugar mills, as well as the infrastructure for downstream food manufacturing and processing industries.
The body declared 2016 its Year of Logistics, marked by a number of new port calls and a new automated container terminal, ready for 20,000 TEU vessels. There are new highways opening, including a new direct connection to Saudi Arabia that will cut 800km off the current journey to Riyadh and freezones are being developed as hubs for innovation in the logistics sector.
Firsts achieved to date include the arrival of the ports first 14,000 TEU vessel; arrival of the 100th Valemax vessel; processing of over 200,000 vehicles a year arriving at the general cargo terminal.
Financial performance at SOHAR has been strong touching an average of one million tonnes of cargo a week.
Geilenkirchen says: Considering we only had our first ship here in 2004, and we now handle over 2,500 ships a year, thats a significant achievement. In the first half of 2016, our success story continued, with over 18% year-on-year growth in container throughput and 43% growth in break bulk cargoes. Liquid bulk also performed well, with an increase of over 15% in the first half of 2016 compared to the same period last year.