Recently, Shanghai Zhenhua Port Machinery (ZPMC) has made significant progress in the Saudi King Salman International Integrated Port Facilities Project by successfully completing the installation of the No. 5 dry dock doors, marking another solid step towards the full completion of the project.
The Saudi King Port project is a rare ultra-large ship and offshore engineering base in the world that integrates “shipbuilding, ship repair, offshore engineering and engineering ship repair”. With a total investment of more than US$3 billion, it was personally named by King Salman. It is located in the Ras Al Khair Industrial Zone on the eastern coast of the Persian Gulf in Saudi Arabia, 180 kilometers north of Dammam, the third largest city in Saudi Arabia. It is an important part of Saudi Arabia’s “Vision 2030”.
The project construction content includes 3 ship repair docks, 3 ship building docks, 1 offshore dock, 2 offshore slideways, 1 5,000-ton ship lift, 5 horizontal slipways, 5 piers, 10 shore docks, and a dock shoreline length of 4,100 meters. The total area is about 515 hectares, and the “four major production areas of ship repair area, engineering ship repair area, large shipbuilding area, and offshore equipment area” and living areas are built, with a total construction area of 1.03 million square meters. After completion, it will become the world’s largest “super shipyard”, mainly engaged in the manufacture, maintenance, repair and overhaul of ships and drilling platforms, including the inspection and manufacture of supertankers.
The Saudi King Port project is undertaken by PowerChina’s Shandong Electric Power Construction, and ZPMC is responsible for the construction of important components such as the No. 2, No. 4 and No. 5 dry dock gates, the ship lift system, the launching barge and the pontoon. Three of the dry dock doors and shiplift systems were built by Zhenhua Offshore Engineering. Previously, No.2 and No.4 dry dock doors have been successfully completed and handed over.
The No. 5 dry dock, which completed the installation of the dock door this time, and the No. 4 dry dock, which was completed and handed over by PowerChina’s Shandong Electric Power Construction last month, are both the largest dry docks in the Middle East. The No. 4 dry dock is 550 meters long, 75 meters wide, and 13.8 meters deep, with a total of 126,000 cubic meters of concrete poured. The No. 5 dock door is 76.5 meters long, 6 meters wide, 12.5 meters high, and weighs more than 2,600 tons.
A total of four gantry cranes were designed and installed in dry docks No. 4 and No. 5, all manufactured by ZPMC. Among them, dry dock No. 4 consists of one 1,600-ton and one 500-ton gantry crane. After installation, the 1,600-ton giant gantry crane has a net lifting height of 113.5 meters, ranking first in the world, and a combined lifting capacity of 2,100 tons, which is at the forefront of the world. Dry dock No. 5 is equipped with two 500-ton giant gantry cranes, with a net lifting height of 83 meters and a combined lifting capacity of 1,000 tons.
After commissioning, the four gantry cranes are mainly used for lifting hull sections, boarding towers and other large components, which will provide the shipyard with the ability to build four drilling platforms and more than 40 ultra-large oil tankers, Suezmax, Panamax and Handysize ships.
Public information shows that since 2024, a number of key facilities have been handed over to the owner of the Saudi King Port project in which a number of Chinese companies are involved, including hull workshops and dry docks. Relying on the transferred workshops and facilities, the shipyard operator, International Maritime Industries, has started building offshore drilling platforms last year.