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.

The industrial picture

Where Manama's timber-packaging demand sits

Manama is small on a map but heavy in the kind of trade that needs timber packaging. The capital sits at the centre of a re-export economy that pulls cargo in from the Gulf, repacks it for onward shipment to Saudi Arabia via the King Fahd Causeway, and feeds finished aluminium, fasteners and engineered parts out through Khalifa Bin Salman Port and Bahrain International Airport. Every one of those flows needs export-fit crates, pallets and container dunnage. Manama itself is the commercial face; the wood-consuming activity clusters in the nearby industrial estates that route most inbound cargo through Manama-area importers and clearing agents.

Bahrain International Investment Park (BIIP), Salman Industrial City

BIIP at Hidd / Salman Industrial City is the anchor. It hosts aluminium downstream units, electronics assembly, automotive components, food packaging and a thick layer of logistics 3PLs. These tenants do not run wood-machining lines of their own. They buy packing-grade plywood, sawn timber and pre-built crates from outside suppliers and assemble export packs in-house or through local job-work packers.

Hidd Industrial Area and the aluminium supply chain

Bahrain's primary aluminium smelter ships billet and rolled-coil exports out of Hidd in containerised loads. The downstream extruders, rollers and fabricators that feed off that metal need heavy-duty pallets and edge protection. This is the segment that consumes the bulk of Bahrain's 18 mm and 12 mm packing-grade plywood imports.

Mina Salman and the old industrial port belt

The older Mina Salman / Sitra industrial corridor still runs marine fabrication, oilfield service workshops and engineering job-shops. These shops ship out skids, sub-assemblies and spares that need custom crates with bolted skids and steel-strapped lids, not just generic boxes.

Khalifa Bin Salman Port (KBSP), Hidd

KBSP is Bahrain's main container gateway. Most plywood and timber cargo from Kochi lands here. The port sits about 13 km from central Manama and feeds directly into BIIP and Hidd Industrial Area by short trucking lanes, which keeps inland haulage costs reasonable for a port-side packer.

What we ship

Four product lines into the Manama trade

Bahrain's buyer profile is consistent: medium-volume, quality-sensitive, willing to pay a small premium for sheets that machine cleanly and crates that clear plant-quarantine first time at KBSP. We manufacture and ship four main product lines into the Manama trade.

Packing-grade plywood

Our workhorse is rubberwood and mixed-hardwood packing-grade plywood, manufactured under our own specifications at our facilities in Perumbavoor. Standard export pack is the 8×4 ft sheet (2440 × 1220 mm). Common Manama-bound thicknesses are 8 mm and 12 mm for case sides and tops, and 18 mm for skids, bases and heavy-load decks. An Okoume face veneer is available as an option on the packing and BWR grades where a cleaner export face is wanted.

Export crates and cases

For Manama buyers who do not want to assemble in-house, we manufacture knock-down crates: pre-cut plywood panels with sawn-timber framing, heat-treated and ISPM-15 stamped, banded and palletised. Crate sizes are built to customer drawing — common Bahrain orders are 1200 × 1000 × 1100 mm for industrial spares and 2400 × 1200 × 1500 mm for aluminium sub-assemblies.

Wooden pallets

Four-way entry 1200 × 1000 mm and 1200 × 800 mm Euro-spec pallets, sawn from kiln-dried hardwood and ISPM-15 treated. Bahrain's aluminium and food-export sectors mostly run the 1200 × 1000.

Container flooring and dunnage

18 mm to 25 mm hardwood ply or laminated decking sheets for container floor repairs and heavy-load dunnage. Mostly bought by the 3PLs at BIIP who refurbish reefer and dry-box containers for re-export traffic.

Logistics

Kochi to Manama: the detail that matters

The sea distance from Cochin Port to Khalifa Bin Salman Port is roughly 1,900 nautical miles. Direct services are not common — most Kochi–Bahrain plywood cargo is consolidated into containers that move on a Kochi → Jebel Ali transhipment via mainline carriers, then a feeder to KBSP. Door-to-port transit time runs 14 to 21 days depending on the week's sailing schedule and the Jebel Ali dwell.

For an LCL pallet of plywood it is often cheaper and faster to consolidate via a Jebel Ali groupage agent than to wait for a direct slot. For full-container (FCL) orders — typically 20 ft containers loaded to about 25 to 27 tonnes of plywood — direct booking on a Kochi-origin sailing makes more sense. A 20 ft container handles roughly 550 to 620 sheets of 12 mm packing-grade plywood depending on stack pattern, which is the standard reorder unit for most Bahrain importers.

On compliance: the packing-grade plywood sheet itself is a manufactured wood product and is generally outside ISPM-15 scope. The sawn-timber framing inside our built-up crates, and our pallets, are heat-treated and ISPM-15 stamped at origin so they clear KBSP plant-quarantine first time.

Choosing a grade

Decision rules for the Bahrain buyer

Bahrain's typical loads — aluminium downstream products, engineering spares, fasteners, food exports — fit a narrow band of plywood grades. Here is how we think about the choice.

• Packing-grade plywood is the default for export crates and pallets. It machines cleanly, holds nails and staples, and is priced for repeat-volume crate work. This is what most BIIP packers buy.
• Okoume face veneer makes sense as an option on the packing and BWR grades when the buyer needs a lighter, cleaner-faced sheet for the same panel size — useful for air-freight crates moving out of Bahrain International Airport, or for premium electronics packaging where every kilogram of pack weight is billable. We quote it on request rather than on the standard rate card.
• Shuttering (film-faced) plywood is the right choice when the buyer is a Manama-area construction contractor casting concrete formwork. It is not the right sheet for packing crates — the phenolic film makes it slippery for nailing and overkill on cost.

FAQ

Common questions from Manama buyers

Do you ship FCL only, or can we start with an LCL trial order?

Both. First-time Manama buyers usually start with a 5-to-10 pallet LCL consolidation to test the grade, then move to 20 ft FCL once their packing line confirms the sheet machines as expected.

Is the plywood ISPM-15 compliant on arrival at KBSP?

The packing-grade plywood sheet itself is a manufactured wood product and is generally outside ISPM-15 scope. The sawn-timber framing inside our built-up crates, and our pallets, are heat-treated and ISPM-15 stamped at origin so they clear KBSP plant-quarantine first time.

What is the typical lead time from confirmed PI to vessel sailing from Kochi?

For standard packing-grade sheets in common thicknesses we hold finished stock — 5 to 7 working days from PI to stuffing. For built-up ISPM-15 crates to drawing, allow 10 to 14 working days for fabrication plus stuffing.

Get a quote

Request a quote for your Manama load

If you are sourcing packing-grade plywood, export crates, pallets or container flooring for a Manama or wider Bahrain delivery, send us the spec — thickness, sheet count or crate drawing, and target month — and we will come back with an FOB Cochin price and a sailing window for Khalifa Bin Salman Port. Request a quote for a Manama shipment, or browse our resource hub for grade specifications, ISPM-15 notes and container-loading calculators. Our group has manufactured plywood in Perumbavoor since 1986 — forty years of group operations — and Bahrain has been part of our GCC ship-to map for a long stretch of that history.