King Salman International Complex for Maritime Industries and Services

The King Salman International Complex for Maritime Industries and Services, one of the government megaprojects in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, was established with the vision of localizing the industry in the energy sector. Located in Ras al-Khair near al-Jubayl Industrial City, it stands as the Kingdom's largest maritime industry complex and the largest in the region in terms of productive capacity and scope.

The complex was inaugurated during the reign of the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques, King Salman Bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, in 2016. During the inauguration, the then-Minister of Energy announced an amendment of the complex’s name from the Aramco Marine Industries Complex to the King Salman International Complex for Maritime Industries and Services.

The King Salman International Complex for Maritime Industries and Services consists of a vast shipyard, which includes industrial buildings for manufacturing ship engines; another area for manufacturing maritime platforms and drilling rigs; a ship repair and maintenance area; and an area dedicated to maritime supply vessels. It is comprised of a number of drydocks and special ship cranes for supply vessel repair and construction.

The King Salman International Complex for Maritime Industries and Services’ operational areas include seven drydocks and seventeen miscellaneous piers, distributed as follows:

Area One: Dedicated to repairing and maintaining vessels and drilling rigs, it comprises three drydocks and twelve ship berths and workshops fully equipped for all maintenance and refurbishment works. The area’s annual maintenance handling capacity exceeds fifteen drilling rigs and 130 vessels, as well as repairing crude oil supertankers.

Area Two: It consists of nine land berths, fully equipped vessel repair workshops, and a special area for maritime support vessels. The area's estimated production capacity is twenty-five vessels and repair services for 115 maritime support vessels per year.

Area Three: The largest area in terms of space, dedicated to constructing commercial vessels, and facilitates the construction of all types of vessels utilizing modern production methods in the field. This area comprises three dry docks and six fully equipped berths. This area's annual production capacity can accommodate three crude oil supertankers and fifteen diverse commercial vessels.

Area Four: It includes a dry dock for building drilling rigs with a loading capacity of up to ten thousand t. It provides the capability to construct more than eleven fixed offshore platforms and four drilling rigs annually.

The King Salman International Complex for Maritime Industries and Services spans an area of approximately five km and extends four km along the east coast of Ras al-Khair. Throughout its construction, contractors reclaimed approximately 37 million m of soil and upgraded the quality of around 7.4 million m of land. This facilitated the construction of 4,500 m of longitudinal concrete docks and twelve thousand m of rock and breakwaters to safeguard the complex.

The King Salman International Complex for Maritime Industries and Services is one of the components in the realization of Saudi Vision 2030, with approximately SAR60 billion in investments. It also significantly contributes to bolstering the gross domestic product by an estimated SAR17 billion, reducing imports by around SAR12 billion, providing eighty thousand job opportunities for citizens, and ensuring the security of maritime supplies while manufacturing tugboats within the Kingdom

The activities of the King Salman International Complex for Maritime Industries and Services were expanded with the establishment of additional manufacturing areas. In 2022, Saudi Aramco announced a collaboration with the National Petroleum Construction Company and McDermott International to set up two maritime manufacturing zones for the production and assembly of maritime platforms and offshore structures within the Kingdom.

The two new areas will be established in Ras al-Khair, and the facilities are planned to become operational by the third quarter of 2023, with a combined initial production capacity of approximately seventy thousand t per year. When fully operational, these areas are expected to provide a large number of direct and indirect employment opportunities, with a target Saudization rate of up to 70 percent.