King Abdul Aziz Port is the second busiest commercial port in Saudi Arabia. Serving the country's central and eastern regions, King Abdul Aziz Port is strategically located to serve the regional oil industry and to support the development of Saudi Arabia's capital, Riyadh, and other major provincial cities in the central and eastern regions.

Located in Dammam [note this is a YouTube video link], the capital of the Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia, King Abdul Aziz Port is a fully self-sufficient port that contains a large housing complex for employees of the port, mosques, a clinic, a fire department, and a supermarket. King Abdul Aziz Port has its own telephone, electrical, and marine communications networks and its own water treatment plants in addition to marine and mechanical workshops and administrative offices. King Abdul Aziz Port is connected with the rest of the country through an excellent highway system, and a busy railroad connects it with Riyadh Dry Port some 400 kilometers (246 miles) to the southwest.

King Abdul Aziz Port covers an area of over 19 thousand hectares. In addition to commercial port facilities, King Abdul Aziz Port has a fully-equipped 13.5-hectare ship repair complex with two ship repair and maintenance docks and an advanced training center. King Abdul Aziz Port has a 95-meter (310-foot) tower and special stations that handle containers, bulk cereals, and cold and frozen foods.

Berths 1 through 13 are the central berths in King Abdul Aziz Port, and they cover an area of 41 hectares and contain ten warehouses covering 5.5 hectares. Berths 1, 2, and 3 are used for the discharge of grain. Berths 4 through 13 handle general cargo and are served by rail connections. Berth 10 is dedicated for bagged fertilizer.

Berths 14 through 22 are the eastern berths. Covering an area of almost 50 hectares, the eastern berths have ten warehouses covering nearly six hectares. These berths handle general cargo, and there are roll-on/roll-off ramps at Berths 14 and 22.

The container terminal is served by Berths 23 through 26. There is a roll-on/roll-off ramp at Berth 23.

King Abdul Aziz Port's western berths, Berths 27 through 34, cover an area of 74.5 hectares and contain eight warehouses of 4.7 hectares. Berths 27, 28, and 29 handle roll-on/roll-off and project cargoes. Berth 30 is used for discharge of grain. Berths 31 through 34 are dedicated for general cargo and grey cement. Also part of the western berths in King Abdul Aziz Port, Berth 35 has 2.9 hectares of cold stores and a roll-on/roll-off ramp.

Berths 36, 37, and 38 in King Abdul Aziz Port handle bulk ores, white and grey cement, clinker, and other grains and edible oils. There is a roll-on/roll-off ramp at Berth 36. Berth 39 is home to the King Abdul Aziz Port explosives terminal. It also handles cement, clinker, gypsum, and other bulk products.

The King Abdul Aziz Port fleet includes eight harbor tugs ranging from 3000 to 4600 bhp. The fleet also includes fire boats, pilot boats, an oil skimmer, floating cranes, survey vessels, buoy-laying vessels, and several garbage scows.

In 2011, King Abdul Aziz Port handled a total of almost 25.9 million tons of cargo, unloading nearly 19.4 million tons and loading 6.5 million tons. King Abdul Aziz Port handled over 14.5 million tons of containerized cargo in almost 1.5 million TEUs, including incoming containers of over 8.8 million tons (809.9 thousand TEUs) and outgoing containers of 5.7 million tons (682.4 thousand TEUs). King Abdul Aziz Port handled more than 6.4 million tons of solid bulk cargo, including almost 5.9 million tons of incoming bulk cargo and 523.8 thousand tons of outgoing bulk. King Abdul Aziz Port handled 4.5 million tons of general cargo, 95% of which was incoming. King Abdul Aziz Port also handled 393.2 thousand tons of incoming and six thousand tons of outgoing roll-on/roll-off cargo and vehicles. King Abdul Aziz Port handled 19.1 thousand tons of incoming non-petroleum liquid bulk cargo in 2011.

Incoming cargoes in King Abdul Aziz Port in 2011 were dominated by food and foodstuffs (6.5 million tons) and construction materials (6.1 million tons). King Abdul Aziz Port also unloaded 2.6 million tons of consumer goods, 3.7 million tons of miscellaneous cargo, and 576.7 thousand tons of vehicles.

Petrochemicals (4.3 million tons) was the primary outgoing cargo in King Abdul Aziz Port in 2011. Industrial products followed at over one million tons. Other outgoing cargoes included empty containers and chassis (620.6 thousand tons), recycling material (286.5 thousand tons), miscellaneous cargoes (73.2 thousand tons), food and foodstuffs (60.9 thousand tons), refined products (29.5 thousand tons), and vehicles (seven thousand tons).

• Container terminals

International Port Services (IPS) Company operates a multi-purpose deep-water facility and container terminal in King Abdul Aziz Port. A subsidiary of Hutchison Port Holdings (HPH), the facility is a joint venture between HPH and the Saudi ferry operator Maritime Company for Navigation (MACNA). The IPS terminal in King Abdul Aziz Port includes a dedicated container freight station and a temperature-controlled reefer facility, and it is equipped with modern container-handling equipment and a state-of-the-art terminal operating system.

King Abdul Aziz Port's IPS terminal covers an area of 72 hectares and is served by six container berths and two roll-on/roll-off berths. Total berth length is 1800 meters (5905 feet) and alongside depth is 14 meters (45.9 feet). The IPS terminal is equipped with 14 container quay cranes and five mobile cranes. It also has 33 rubber-tyred gantry cranes, 35 straddle carriers, two reach stackers, 120 forklifts, nine empty container handlers, and 102 terminal tractors. The container freight station at the IPS terminal in King Abdul Aziz Port covers 28 hectares, and the terminal has 1736 reefer plugs.

In October 2012, a joint venture company, Saudi Global Ports LLC (SGP), was formed between the country's Public Investment Fund and PSA International to build a second container terminal in King Abdul Aziz Port. The project is PSA's first infrastructure project in Saudi Arabia. The new King Abdul Aziz Port terminal will have the latest technology and equipment and be linked by both rail and highway to the capital city of Riyadh. When completed, the terminal will have 1200 meters (3937 feet) of quays with capacity to handle 1.8 million TEUs per year. It will be equipped with 12 quay cranes.

• Bulk and breakbulk terminals

The King Abdul Aziz Port Eastern General Cargo Terminal is operated by Dammam's Globe Marine, one of the country's leading marine service groups. Globe Marine operations include shipping, transportation, port operations, logistics, operations and maintenance, and cargo surveying. Since it was founded in 1976, Globe Marine has expanded beyond Saudi Arabia's borders into Sudan, Bahrain, and the United Arab Emirates. The Eastern General Cargo Terminal in King Abdul Aziz Port covers about 200 hectares and contains 12.5 hectares of storage area.

El Emar Agricultural Services is Saudi Arabia's biggest importer and distributor of agricultural products. Operating the King Abdul Aziz Port Bulk Grain Terminal, Arabian Agricultural Services (ARASCO) operates a silo system at Berth 37 in King Abdul Aziz Port with capacity for 140 thousand tons of cargo.

Al-Nawa Technical Services operates the King Abdul Aziz Port's Central General Cargo Terminal.

The Saudi Cement Company (SSC) exports cement and clinker through King Abdul Aziz Port. SSC produces cement and cement products at two cement plants within 130 kilometers (80 miles) of King Abdul Aziz Port.

Rashed Al Rashed owns bulk carriers for importing cement, and it has a fleet of over 400 trucks that carry bulk and bagged cement throughout Saudi Arabia and other members of the Cooperation Council for Arab States of the Gulf. Rashed Al Rashed uses terminals at King Abdul Aziz Port for handling grey and white cement.

• Rail and intermodal connections

The state-owned Saudi Railways Organization (SRO) operates the country's rail network and provides freight services on two mail lines with total length of 1018 kilometers (632.6 miles. The railway connects King Abdul Aziz Port with Riyadh with both passenger trains and freight carriers. The Dammam Port Line in King Abdul Aziz Port includes 12.8 kilometers (eight miles) of rail tracks. SRO also operates a 449.1 kilometer (279.1 mile) passenger rail.

• Port services

Al-Zamil provides marine and pilotage services in King Abdul Aziz Port, and Saudi Development Re-export Services operates the King Abdul Aziz Port Re-export Zone.

The King Abdul Aziz Port Commercial Center is operated by Noor Carton and Packaging Industry which specializes in paper and paperboard packaging. The facility can tailor-make a wide range of packages to serve specialized industries. Operating since 1994 in Dammam, the facility covers an area of three hectares, and the plant can produce more than 20 thousand metric tons per year.

The King Fahad Ship Repair Yard in King Abdul Aziz Port is operated by Dena-BMS, one of Saudi Arabia's leading marine companies serving the Middle East. It is the only company in the country fully devoted to marine business. In King Abdul Aziz Port, King Fahad Ship Repair Yard services include ship repair, steel fabrication, stevedoring, marine construction, desalination, sewage treatment, offshore diving and services, and operation and maintenance of harbor craft. King Abdul Aziz Port's King Fahad Ship Repair Yard partners with marine industries around the world including shipping lines and agencies, shipyards, offshore works, marine construction, and marine equipment manufacturers and ship logistics companies in Europe and America.

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