Sudan-Saudi maritime border push raises strategic and sovereignty concerns for Egypt

NAIROBI,Kenya, Sep 24— A decades-old effort to settle the maritime boundary between Sudan and Saudi Arabia is gaining momentum as the Red Sea faces growing security and shipping pressures, potentially putting Egypt’s territorial claims, maritime resources and Suez Canal interests under renewed scrutiny.

Sudan has begun assembling the technical and institutional machinery needed to advance maritime delimitation with Saudi Arabia, even as the country remains engulfed in war.

On September 14, Sudanese Army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan chaired a meeting linked to the Supreme Council for Strategic Cooperation and Coordination with Saudi Arabia, which the two countries formally established in Riyadh on August 17.

The council is intended to provide a framework for expanding bilateral cooperation across economic, investment, trade and political fields.

The Sudanese meeting assigned the Sea Ports Corporation a coordinating role between civilian and military institutions and provided the council’s executive secretariat access to historical maps and documents relating to the Red Sea and Sudan’s borders.

A technical committee involving the National Border Commission and the navy is also expected to review maps and legal documents and prepare a proposed maritime delimitation plan, according to Sudanese reporting.

The move does not, however, mean that Sudan and Saudi Arabia have begun formal negotiations on a final maritime boundary.

Sudan’s own records continue to show no registered maritime boundary agreement with Saudi Arabia.

Why Egypt is watching

For Egypt, the issue goes beyond the maritime boundary between its two neighbours.

Egypt and Saudi Arabia signed their own maritime delimitation agreement in April 2016, which entered into force in July 2017 and was registered with the United Nations.

Sudan objected to that agreement at the United Nations, arguing that parts of the Egyptian-Saudi maritime line affected waters connected to the disputed Halayeb and Shalatin area.

Egypt rejected Sudan’s position, reaffirming its sovereignty over territory north of the 22nd parallel and over the adjacent territorial waters.

In its UN declaration, Cairo said the Egypt-Saudi agreement was a bilateral maritime agreement between two sovereign states.

That history means any new Sudan-Saudi maritime map could have implications for the unresolved Egypt-Sudan territorial dispute.

If a Sudan-Saudi boundary is drawn without touching Egypt’s claims, the process could remain largely a bilateral matter.

But if Sudan were to use the negotiations to revive or incorporate claims linked to Halayeb, the issue could reopen a sensitive three-way maritime question.

There is also evidence that Khartoum has previously considered coordination with Cairo over its maritime boundaries.

Sudanese reporting in 2025 said its border authorities were tasked with working on a framework for land and maritime boundary discussions with Egypt.

Resources beneath the Red Sea

The stakes are also economic.

The Sudan-Saudi maritime file dates back to the discovery of major mineral deposits beneath the central Red Sea, particularly the Atlantis II Deep between Jeddah and Port Sudan.

Sudan and Saudi Arabia signed a 1974 agreement establishing exclusive resource rights in areas close to their respective coasts and a joint zone in the deeper central Red Sea for resource exploitation.

The agreement was registered with the United Nations.

The Atlantis II Deep contains deposits of minerals including zinc, copper, silver and gold, giving the maritime boundary question an economic dimension beyond sovereignty and navigation.

The 1974 arrangement predates the 1982 UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, adding a legal dimension to efforts to clarify the two countries’ maritime rights under modern maritime law.

For Sudan, clearer boundaries could provide a framework for future investment and exploitation of offshore resources.

For Egypt, however, the location of any new boundary could matter because its own Red Sea maritime rights meet those of Sudan and Saudi Arabia.

The Suez Canal factor

The timing is particularly significant for Egypt because the wider Red Sea shipping system remains vulnerable to conflict.

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi said in January that the country had lost about $9 billion in direct Suez Canal revenues over two years because of regional instability and disruptions to shipping.

Although traffic through the canal has shown signs of recovery, the security environment around the Red Sea remains volatile.

Houthi forces have intensified attacks and advanced along Yemen’s Red Sea coast towards the Bab el-Mandeb, the southern gateway to the Red Sea and a critical route for shipping to and from the Suez Canal.

Against that backdrop, Sudan and Saudi Arabia are also strengthening maritime cooperation.

The Sudanese Sea Ports Corporation has held talks with Saudi officials on expanding cooperation in maritime transport and port operations, while Sudanese military officials have discussed Red Sea security with the Saudi ambassador.

Saudi Arabia, meanwhile, has been expanding its own maritime-security coordination as attacks and instability threaten Red Sea navigation.

For Egypt, whose economy depends heavily on the Suez Canal, developments along the Red Sea coast therefore carry strategic significance even when they occur outside Egyptian territory.

The maritime issue is unlikely to be viewed in isolation from Egypt’s broader relationship with Saudi Arabia.

On September 21, the foreign ministers of Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Türkiye and Pakistan reaffirmed their support for Sudan’s sovereignty, unity and territorial integrity and agreed to maintain close coordination on regional security.

Egypt and Saudi Arabia therefore have overlapping interests in maintaining stability around Sudan and the Red Sea, even as the maritime boundaries involve separate legal claims.

The maritime boundary issue has remained unresolved for decades despite the 1974 agreement and later attempts to revive cooperation.

The renewed push comes at a particularly sensitive moment where Sudan is seeking to rebuild state institutions while fighting continues, Saudi Arabia is strengthening its strategic relationship with Khartoum, and the wider Red Sea has become a contested security corridor.