The industrial picture

Sitra is small in size, heavy in tonnage

Sitra is a small island that punches well above its area in industrial weight. Bahrain's refining, petrochemical and downstream metal industries cluster on and around it, so the export packing flow out of Sitra is not bags and cartons. It is heavy machinery, refinery spares, pump bodies, valves, instrumentation skids and aluminium semis. That cargo does not ship in stretch wrap. It ships in plywood crates, sat on heat-treated pallets, sometimes inside containers floored with hardwood ply.

Sitra sits south of Manama, connected by causeway, and functions as Bahrain's heavy-industrial spine. The cargo profile that matters for plywood packing comes from a few specific clusters:

• The Sitra refinery: a large refinery anchors the island. Turnarounds, modernisation projects and spares cycles generate a constant stream of incoming and outgoing crated equipment, including heat-exchanger tube bundles, valve assemblies, instrumentation and pump casings.
• Sitra Industrial Area and Sitra Wharf: the wharf on the eastern side handles a large share of Bahrain's petroleum exports, and the surrounding industrial belt houses fabricators, EPC contractors and freight-forwarders who crate refinery and oilfield gear before it goes outbound.
• The Askar aluminium belt: the smelter and its downstream rolling, extrusion and semis units south of Sitra feed into the same packing supply chain. Coils and bundles travel on heavy pallets with ply caps.
• The Sitra petrochem cluster: ammonia, methanol and urea trains on the island move catalyst skids, vessels and instrumentation in and out under crated packing.
• Khalifa Bin Salman Port (Hidd) and Mina Salman: Bahrain's container gateway at Hidd, about 15 to 20 km from Sitra, is where most of this crated cargo ultimately leaves on a vessel.

The common thread is heavy, irregular, high-value cargo moving by sea. That dictates which plywood spec is fit for purpose.

What we ship

A packing line built for refinery and petrochem cargo

Our group has been in the timber and plywood trade in Perumbavoor, Kerala since 1986, roughly forty years of group manufacturing across packing-grade panels, sawn hardwood and downstream packing materials. We manufacture the packing-line range to CWI specifications, which is why the product set maps so cleanly to what GCC refinery and petrochem packers actually need.

Packing-grade plywood, the core panel

Most Sitra-bound crates are built from MR-grade packing plywood, hardwood core, with a Gurjan or Okoume face veneer depending on the buyer's preference. Typical specs we ship into export packing lines:

Sizes are typically 8x4 ft (2440 x 1220 mm), but we cut to size for fabricators who want sheet-optimised crates and less on-site waste. For buyers handling sensitive instrumentation, we supply Okoume-faced panels with tighter surface tolerance: cleaner finish, lower fibre lift and less risk of contamination inside the crate. Okoume here is a face-veneer option on the packing grade, not a separate grade.

Wooden crates and boxes

Most refinery and petrochem packers in Sitra prefer to build their own crates around the equipment, but they buy the panels, sawn-timber framing and pallet bases as a kit. We supply both: the ply sheets and the heat-treated, ISPM-15 compliant sawn timber needed for the framing. ISPM-15 is non-negotiable for any wooden packing entering or leaving Bahrain. Every batch we ship for export packing use carries the IPPC mark and the heat-treatment certificate.

Pallets

The pallet sizes that move easily into and out of Bahrain are the GCC-standard 1200 x 1000 mm and the ISO 1200 x 800 mm. For refinery spares we also build heavier-duty 1200 x 1200 mm and custom skid pallets to take exchanger tube bundles and vessel sections. All pallet timber is heat-treated and stencilled.

Container flooring plywood

This is a smaller but consistent line into the GCC. Container repair yards and reefer-conversion workshops use 28 mm and 30 mm hardwood plywood with a phenolic film face for re-flooring shipping containers. We supply this on order for container fleet operators routing through Khalifa Bin Salman Port and Mina Salman.

Logistics

The Kochi-to-Sitra lane

Cochin Port (Vallarpadam ICTT) to Khalifa Bin Salman Port at Hidd is roughly 1900 nautical miles. The lane is not direct on most weekly services; boxes typically tranship at Jebel Ali in Dubai, sometimes at Salalah, before feeding into Bahrain. Practical transit numbers we work to:

• Sea transit, Cochin to Hidd: typically 12 to 18 days door-to-door, depending on the tranship window at Jebel Ali.
• Inland leg in India: Perumbavoor to Cochin ICTT is about 45 km. Material loaded out of our Kerala packing line reaches the gate the same day.
• Last mile in Bahrain: Hidd port to the Sitra industrial area is around 15 to 20 km by causeway and trunk road, an easy trucking move for the customer's freight-forwarder.

For buyers comparing landed cost, the Kerala origin gives two practical advantages. First, the Perumbavoor cluster is the cheapest hardwood plywood manufacturing belt in India, which keeps FOB Cochin numbers competitive against Indonesian and Chinese alternatives. Second, our operation sits next to a deep-water transhipment port, which removes the 1,000 km-plus inland leg that landlocked North-Indian plywood mills carry.

Choosing a grade

Which grade for which Sitra load

A simple way to choose:

• Standard packing-grade ply (MR, hardwood core): the default for almost every Sitra refinery and petrochem crate. Right cost, right strength, ISPM-15 compliant framing.
• Okoume-faced packing ply: step up when the buyer wants a cleaner internal surface, for instrumentation crates, catalyst skids or anything that should not pick up fibre dust during the 12 to 18 day transit.
• BWR / phenolic-bonded ply: use when the crate will sit outdoors in a yard before vessel cut-off, or when the cargo itself is moisture-sensitive and the crate may meet open weather on the Bahrain side.
• Shuttering ply: not typically a packing product, but Sitra and the broader Bahrain construction belt do consume film-faced shuttering ply for civil works at refinery and petrochem expansion sites. We ship this on the same lane.

FAQ

Common questions from Sitra buyers

Do you ship ISPM-15 compliant material for Bahrain customs?

Yes. All sawn timber and pallet stock we ship for export packing carries the IPPC heat-treatment stamp and a heat-treatment certificate. Bahrain follows the standard ISPM-15 import rule for wooden packing material.

What MOQs make sense for a Sitra buyer?

For a mixed FCL out of Cochin we typically build 20 ft and 40 ft loads combining plywood sheets, sawn-timber bundles and pallet stock. Smaller buyers often consolidate through a freight-forwarder in Cochin, and we can hand over to that forwarder directly from our packing line.

Can you supply pre-cut crate kits rather than full sheets?

Yes. For repeat refinery-spares packers we cut panels to crate dimensions and band them as kits: less waste at the Sitra fabrication shop and a faster crate build-up around the equipment.

Get a quote

Send your equipment list and ply specs

If you are packing refinery equipment, petrochem spares, aluminium semis or any other heavy cargo out of Sitra and want to compare a Kochi-origin packing supply against your current source, the fastest path is to send us the equipment list and required ply specs. We manufacture the packing-grade plywood, crates and pallets in Perumbavoor, where our group has operated since 1986, and we will come back with FOB Cochin numbers, a packing-list breakdown and an indicative sailing window.