King Abdulaziz Port in Dammam

King Abdulaziz Port in Dammam is the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia's main port on the Arabian Gulf coast, covering an area of nineteen km. It serves as a main gateway for export and import services, facilitating the movement of goods from around the world to the eastern and central regions of the Kingdom.

King Abdulaziz Port was established by the order of the Founding King Abdulaziz Bin Abdulrahman Al Saud, who entrusted Aramco with its construction to meet the requirements of the oil industry in the Kingdom. Subsequently, the port witnessed successive expansions, and the new expansion was inaugurated in 1961 during the reign of King Saud Bin Abdulaziz Al Saud. It was then named King Abdulaziz Port.

The King Abdulaziz Port in Dammam has a handling capacity of 105 million t. Additionally, it is connected to the dry port in Riyadh by a railway, facilitating the entry of goods from around the world into the eastern and central regions of the Kingdom. The King Abdulaziz Port in Dammam comprises forty-three fully serviced berths capable of accommodating giant vessels. The port is equipped with modern handling equipment capable of handling various types of cargo, an advanced container terminal, two general cargo terminals, and supporting terminals. At the heart of the port, there is a ship repair facility with two floating docks capable of accommodating ships up to 215 m in length.

Two shipyards for shipbuilding and repair were established at King Abdulaziz Port in Dammam, the first being the Zamil Company shipyard, the first of its kind in the Kingdom, which started operating in 2002, and the second being the Star Company dock for constructing offshore platforms.

The King Abdulaziz Port in Dammam has witnessed several developments since its establishment, the most prominent of which was the utilization of technology to facilitate and organize internal port operations. The first container terminal, operated by the International Ports Services (IPS), witnessed Saudi women obtaining licenses to operate large remote-controlled gantry cranes used for handling containers from ships to the docks. In 2019, the second container terminal at the King Abdulaziz Port successfully received the Cosco Solar, one of the world's largest container ships, with a capacity exceeding 21,000 containers.

In 2020, the Saudi Ports Authority signed the largest single concession contract in the Kingdom for the development and operation of container terminals at King Abdulaziz Port in Dammam with the Saudi Global Ports Company (SGP), with investments exceeding SAR7 billion, according to the Build-Operate-Transfer (BOT) model with contracts extending for thirty years. In 2019, King Abdulaziz Port received the International Excellence Award for Quality Management.

In 2020, King Abdulaziz Port in Dammam set a record by receiving twenty-six different types, sizes, and loads of ships simultaneously. The port continued to operate at full capacity to meet market demands for various goods imported from outside the Kingdom, despite the COVID-19 pandemic. Additionally, the port achieved a new record by handling 199,609 standard containers in August 2022, marking the highest container handling volume in a single month in the port's history.