Yanbu has for many thousand years been know as a fresh water spring, located not far from the Red Sea. Today Yanbu, built on a smaller scale than its Eastern Province cousin of Jubail, comprises petrochemical & non-hydrocarbon facilities and includes a refinery. It is also the terminal station for the east-west pipeline.

Geography & Location

Yanbu Al-Bahr (Arabic: "Spring by the Sea") is the western industrial port of Saudi Arabia. It is located on the Red Sea coast in Madinah Province, about 350 kilometers north of Jeddah. About one third of the city's 185 square kilometer area consists of the industrial site.

Yanbu's location enjoys great advantage. It is located centrally between the Americas and the Far East. It is very near the Suez Canal, opening it to the European market and facilitating the distribution of its product. Even though it is not located too near the major oil fields of the Kingdom, a network of inter-country pipelines convey the crude oil and liquid natural gas to the petrochemical industries site.

History

"Yanbu", as the city is commonly known, is the western terminus of parallel pipelines that carry liquefied natural gas and oil across nearly 1300 km (nearly 800 mi) of desert and mountains. The town is a growing industrial center with three large oil refineries, a petrochemical complex, and a large desalination plant. Industries using gas and oil as raw materials make a variety of consumer products, including plastics. Yanbu is connected with the rest of the country by a modern highway system. It also has an airport, a large commercial port, and a naval base. During the 1st millennium BCE Yanbu al Bahr was a stopping point for merchant caravans on the incense route that extended from Yemen to the Mediterranean Sea. Later it also served as a resting site for Muslim pilgrims traveling to Makkah and Madinah. In 1975 the Saudi government chose Yanbu and Jubail, a small town on the Arabian Gulf coast, to be developed as modern industrial cities. Both play a central role in diversifying Saudi Arabia's economic base so that the country is not dependent solely on crude oil exports.

Developments

Twenty years ago, all that could be seen at Yanbu was a minor Red Sea fishing port, surrounded by an arid coastal plain. Today, Yanbu Industrial City together with its port ranks as one of the exporting giants of the modern Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The construction of this ultra-modern industrial base in such a short time must surely be counted as one of the Kingdom's most astonishing achievements.

Back in the 1960s, Saudi Arabia's vast petroleum deposits were still being largely extracted by foreign countries, thirty years on from the first discovery of oil. The dramatic rise in oil prices, however, which began in the early seventies, heralded a glowing social and economic future for the Kingdom. The dream to establish Saudi Arabia as a top worldwide industrial exporter could at last begin to take shape.

The first step was taken with a Royal Decree in 1975, which first established the Royal Commission for Jubail and Yanbu. In 1977, after two years of hard work, the Commission completed a 30-year Master Plan, which laid down guidelines for the conversion of a staggering 54,362 acres (22,000 hectares) of undeveloped desert land for residential and industrial use.

Industries

Four basic industrial categories were to be established. The first category, Primary Industries: incorporated all petroleum-based or energy-intensive industries. Secondary Industries: included production industries using raw materials from the first category. Support Industries and Light Manufacturing Industries: were categorized as those which produce materials or services needed by the first two categories.

Industrial City & Royal Commission

The new Industrial City of Yanbu was planned as the spearhead for the modernization of the whole of Saudi Arabia's rural northwestern coastal region. It would also provide a new strategic outlet on Red Sea shipping lanes, to handle most of the Kingdom's sea-borne trade. Planners envisaged a city with housing and lifestyle facilities second to none, and an urban population, which would exceed 100,000 by the year 2020. The Royal Commission planned 14 neighborhoods, or residential districts in the new city, which was to be known as "Yanbu Industrial City" (Madinat Yanbu Al-Sinaiyah).

After an initial injection of government money, the strategy was to provide incentives for increasing private investment. The Royal Commission sought to achieve this by the establishment of functioning primary and support industries, and by building an attractive residential environment for both management and workforce. The Commission's first priority was therefore to establish a physical infrastructure, capable of supplying the needs of this growing urban community.

The city of Yanbu epitomizes practicality, efficiency and respect for tradition, and represents one of Saudi Arabia's supreme achievements.

Yanbu Industrial City is being developed under the direction of the Royal Commission for Jubail and Yanbu. Established in 1975 the Commission is responsible for providing the entire infrastructure, both physical and social, needed to construct and operate the huge industrial developments at Jubail and Yanbu. In addition, the Royal Commission is in charge of community and human resources development, environmental protection and the promotion of private-sector investment in two cities. Yanbu is currently host to 15 heavy hydrocarbon, petrochemical and mineral facilities as well as 30 light manufacturing and support industries. There are many big industries in the pipeline at various stages of construction. In Yanbu the world-class refining and petrochemical complexes convert oil and natural gas into products for export and into feedstock for local manufacturers.

The required infrastructure like power, road, port, desalination unit for providing drinking water and telecommunications network are available in both the cities. The Royal Commission's role in industrial development of this area is substantial.

Roads

Yanbu Industrial City parallels King Abdul Aziz Road, the highway connecting Jeddah-Madinah Highway and communities up the coast. Six lanes wide within the city, this main artery forms the spine of the industrial development in the area. Feeder and collector roads branch off to community and industrial zones.

The Yanbu road network, which consists of nearly 460 kilometers of paved surface, provides for rapid, safe and convenient travel within the city. The primary road grid in the residential area helps define and enclose the community's 14 districts. Traffic flow is regulated by a computerized and synchronized traffic control system.

Besides roads, pedestrian paths link residential zones with neighboring commercial centers and other high-use areas, such as apartments, schools and recreational facilities. Pleasantly landscaped, those paths are an integral part of the community's open-space and recreation plan, and greatly contribute to Yanbu's "pedestrian-friendly" city layout.

Yanbu Airport

Yanbu Airport is considered one of the most advanced exemplar airports in the Kingdom. It is

located 6 kilometers from Yanbu Al-Bahr and 25 kilometers from the industrial city. In use since 1979, the airport includes a 3,210-meter-long, 45-meter-wide runway, with a control tower and passenger terminal, requisite navigational systems, and modern cargo handling facilities. Most of the air traffic consists of small and medium-sized aircraft. It is the first airport which utilizes the air bridges in transfering passengers from aircraft to terminals . It currently handles regularly scheduled flights by Saudi Arabian Airlines to and from Jeddah and Riyadh.