The industrial picture

Why Riyadh's industrial belt sits on our shipping desk every week

Riyadh is inland, dry, and absorbing capex at a pace most GCC capitals are not. The Vision 2030 manufacturing push has thickened demand for export-grade wooden packaging across the Riyadh-1, Riyadh-2 and Riyadh-3 industrial cities — the crates, skids and container flooring used to ship machine tools, generator sets, transformers, prefabricated MEP modules, fabricated steel and food-processing lines into and out of the capital. Because Riyadh has no port, almost every heavy item arrives via Jeddah on the Red Sea or Dammam on the Gulf, then trucks 870-950 km inland. That double-handling — sea leg plus desert haul — punishes weak packaging. It is why Riyadh buyers tend to over-spec rather than under-spec their plywood, and why a Kochi-loaded container of properly graded packing ply lands competitively against regional alternatives.

The capital's manufacturing footprint is concentrated in a handful of named belts run by MODON (the Saudi Authority for Industrial Cities and Technology Zones). A working buyer's map looks roughly like this:

• Riyadh-1 (Sulay): the oldest belt, dense with general engineering, fabrication and food units. Crate volumes here skew small-and-frequent.
• Riyadh-2 (Al-Kharj Road): heavier units — transformers, switchgear, building materials, large fabricators. Bigger one-piece crates and skids; container flooring requests show up here.
• Riyadh-3 (Al-Khurmah / Sudair extension): newer Vision-2030 plots — auto components, EV-adjacent assembly, pharma, logistics warehousing. Pallet pools and export packaging dominate.
• Sudair City for Industry & Business (~120 km north of Riyadh): Saudi's largest industrial zone, now anchoring electronics, EV-battery and renewables manufacturing. A major future absorber of plywood pallets and heat-treated crates.
• King Salman Energy Park (SPARK) and the MODON zones at Dammam-2 / Dammam-3: not Riyadh strictly, but tied to the same trucking lane and frequently routed through Riyadh consolidators.

Across these belts, the recurring wood-packaging asks we see are from sectors rather than named buyers: heavy-machinery exporters, EPC contractors moving prefabricated skids, oilfield-service firms, food-and-beverage line builders, marble and stone fabricators (heavy, fragile, brutal on packaging), and 3PL operators standardising pallet pools.

What we ship

Packing plywood, crates, pallets and container flooring

Packing-grade plywood (the workhorse)

Most Riyadh-bound containers leave Kochi loaded with our standard packing-grade rubberwood and commercial hardwood plywood — the practical export-crate material we manufacture in volume. Useful thicknesses, ex-factory:

Sheet sizes are cut to the buyer's bill of materials — 8x4 ft standard, with 7x4, 6x3 and 4x4 cuts available when the crate drawing calls for it. We hold moisture content tight so panels survive a Red Sea humidity spike without warping when they hit dry Riyadh air.

Crate construction

For Riyadh consignees we typically build to ISPM-15 with heat-treated, stamped pinewood and hardwood framing, 12-18 mm plywood skin, screwed-and-glued corners, internal bracing for shock loads, and labelled lift points. Edge protection and VCI lining are added when the cargo is metal or electronics sensitive to the Jeddah-to-Riyadh truck vibration profile.

Pallets

Pallet specs that travel well to Riyadh: 1200x1000 mm (the de-facto GCC export pallet) and 1200x800 mm Euro for buyers feeding into European OEM lines. Four-way entry, 18 mm top deck for pool-grade pallets, 12 mm for one-way export pallets. All heat-treated and stamped to ISPM-15 before we seal the container.

Container flooring

When buyers reefer-convert or rebuild dry containers in Riyadh's logistics parks, we ship 18-28 mm structural plywood flooring panels flat-packed. We supply this as a cut-and-numbered kit so the rebuild crew is not sawing on-site.

Logistics

Kochi-to-Riyadh routing and documentation

The economics are straightforward once the route is set:

• Ocean leg: Cochin Port (Vallarpadam ICTT) to Jeddah Islamic Port is roughly 2,200 nautical miles. Transit is typically 6-8 days direct, 9-12 days on transhipment services via Salalah or Jebel Ali.
• Alternate ocean leg: Cochin to King Abdulaziz Port, Dammam — 10-14 days typical, often transhipped at Jebel Ali. Used when the consignee is east-coast Saudi or when Jeddah congestion is high.
• Inland trucking: Jeddah to Riyadh is ~950 km on Highway 40; Dammam to Riyadh is ~400 km on Highway 80. Both are well-served by Saudi 40-ft trailer fleets; same-week last-mile is normal.
• Documentation: ISPM-15 stamp, fumigation certificate, commercial invoice, packing list, bill of lading, and certificate of origin. We file the ISPM-15 paperwork as part of the order.

For most Riyadh buyers we recommend FOB Cochin and let the consignee's freight forwarder negotiate the ocean leg — this almost always lands cheaper than CIF Jeddah quoted from origin, because Saudi importers run sharp freight contracts.

Choosing a grade

Which grade for which load?

A practical filter the procurement teams in Riyadh use:

• Standard packing-grade ply (rubberwood / commercial hardwood) — use when the cargo is general engineering, fabricated steel, building materials, or anything where the crate is one-trip. This is around 80% of what we ship to Riyadh.
• Okoume-faced packing plywood — use when the buyer wants a lighter, cleaner panel for high-value or showroom-bound goods such as electronics, premium machinery and exhibition gear. Okoume is a face-veneer option on our MR-packing and BWR boards, not a separate grade — it trims weight and improves cosmetic finish.
• Shuttering ply (film-faced) — only if the Riyadh end-use is concrete formwork on a construction site, not packaging. Vision 2030 sites at Diriyah Gate, NEOM-adjacent feeder projects and Riyadh Metro extensions do pull this category.

FAQ

Riyadh buyer questions

Can you ship ISPM-15 stamped material directly?

Yes. All export crates, pallets and dunnage leave Kochi heat-treated, stamped and accompanied by the fumigation certificate accepted by Saudi customs.

What container fill should we plan for from Kochi?

A 40-ft HC typically holds 480-520 sheets of 18 mm 8x4 packing ply, or roughly 540 ISPM-15 pallets in 1200x1000 mm flat-pack. Mixed-thickness loads are routine — share the BOM and we will load-plan it.

How do you handle the humidity swing between Jeddah and Riyadh?

By controlling moisture content at the factory (typically 8-12%) and by specifying glue lines (MR or BWR) that tolerate the swing. Crates built for inland Saudi sites get tighter moisture content and BWR glue as standard.

Get a quote

Get a Riyadh-landed quote

Send a packing list, target sheet sizes, the consignee's port preference (Jeddah or Dammam) and an estimated monthly volume. We will come back with an ex-Kochi rate card, a load plan for a 40-ft HC, and an ISPM-15 documentation pack so your forwarder can quote the ocean leg cleanly. Everything is manufactured in Perumbavoor, where our group has worked timber since 1986. Request a quote or browse the resource hub for crate-design notes, moisture-content guides and the full packing-grade thickness chart.

The industrial picture

Khobar anchors the Kingdom's hydrocarbon engine

Khobar sits at the centre of Saudi Arabia's Eastern Province, the country's hydrocarbon engine. Between Dhahran, Dammam Port and the surrounding operating belt, this corridor moves more oilfield-service equipment, valves, instrumentation skids and heavy spares than almost any other industrial cluster in the Gulf. Every piece of that equipment leaves a workshop in a crate, sits on a pallet, or travels on a container floor. That is where the demand for engineered wood packaging quietly comes from, and that is the trade we ship into from Kochi.

To map the plywood need, it helps to read the industrial belt the city anchors. Khobar is one corner of the Dammam-Dhahran-Khobar triangle, the densest manufacturing and oilfield-services cluster in the Kingdom. The buyers we encounter are clustered in a few specific zones.

Dammam Second Industrial City

This is the heavyweight estate of the Eastern Province. It hosts fabrication shops, oilfield-equipment assemblers, downhole-tool refurbishers, wellhead and Christmas-tree builders, valve manufacturers and instrumentation houses. These workshops crate up high-value equipment for the national oil-and-gas sector, for export to other GCC operators, and for back-shipment to OEM principals in Europe and North America. Crate demand here is constant, and the boxes are heavy, typically 800 kg to 6 tonnes per unit, occasionally more.

Dammam Third Industrial City and the Modon estates

The newer Modon-managed parks around Dammam, including the Third Industrial City and the satellite zones running west toward Abqaiq, house lighter fabrication, electrical-panel builders, HVAC-skid makers, pipe-coating yards and polymer converters. Crates here are mid-weight and high-volume, long shallow boxes for piping spools and skid-mounted units.

King Abdulaziz Port (Dammam) and King Fahd Industrial Port (Jubail)

Khobar's industrial output ships through two ports. Dammam Port handles general cargo, project cargo and break-bulk equipment. Jubail's industrial port, a short trucking lane north, handles petrochemicals and heavy project moves. Both ports drive a steady stream of one-trip crates, plus a recurring need for IPPC-compliant pallets for stuffing 20-foot and 40-foot containers.

Jubail Industrial City

Sixty-odd miles up the coast, Jubail is the petrochemical capital. Its buyers are catalyst handlers, instrumentation OEMs and spare-parts distributors who ship temperature- and shock-sensitive equipment in cushioned plywood crates with internal bracing. This belt also pulls in shuttering-grade plywood when expansion projects break ground.

What we ship

Three product families into the Khobar lane

We carry our Perumbavoor production capacity into the Khobar lane through three main product families, supplied in sheet form for local conversion or as finished units built to your drawings.

Packing-grade plywood (sheet form)

Most Eastern Province crate builders order plywood in sheet form and convert to boxes locally. Our packing range is rubberwood / commercial hardwood, IS 303 MR-grade construction, sized 8 ft x 4 ft as standard, with 4 ft x 4 ft, 8 ft x 3 ft and 6 ft x 3 ft cuts available. Thicknesses move between 6 mm and 18 mm depending on box duty.

Crates (built-to-spec, knocked down or assembled)

For buyers who prefer finished crates landed at Dammam, we build to drawing in Perumbavoor and ship either assembled or in knock-down form. Specifications are confirmed against the load: internal dimensions, gross weight, centre of gravity, lashing eyes, stencil markings and ISPM-15 heat-treatment for the softwood frame members. Standard configurations include cleated plywood boxes, framed crates with diagonal bracing, and skid-base crates for forklift handling.

Pallets and container flooring

Our pallets are built in Indian standard (1200 x 1000 mm), Euro (1200 x 800 mm) and US (1219 x 1016 mm) footprints, two-way or four-way entry, in hardwood or plywood-deck configurations. For Khobar exporters consolidating into containers, the 1200 x 1000 mm two-way pallet is the most-asked footprint. Container flooring boards, 18 mm packing-grade plywood sized to fit the 20-foot and 40-foot floor, are shipped as flat-pack stacks.

Logistics

The Kochi-to-Khobar shipping lane

The shipping lane runs from Cochin Port (Kochi) to King Abdulaziz Port (Dammam), with Jebel Ali as the typical transhipment hub. Direct routings via Salalah are also used. The relevant numbers:

• Sea distance: roughly 1,900 nautical miles, port-to-port
• Transit time: 14–22 days door-to-port, depending on routing and consolidator
• Trucking from Dammam Port to Khobar: 25–40 minutes, no border crossing
• Container types: 20-foot dry, 40-foot dry, occasional 40-foot HC for larger crate stacks
• Compliance: all softwood members are ISPM-15 heat-treated and stamped; documentation includes phytosanitary certificate, commercial invoice, packing list and Saudi conformity papers as relevant

For Khobar buyers we typically quote FOB Cochin or CIF Dammam; the call depends on whether the buyer is consolidating with other Indian-origin cargo. We can also quote ex-works Perumbavoor if the buyer's freight forwarder picks up at our yard.

Choosing a grade

Which grade for which Khobar load

Not every crate needs premium veneer. A short rule-of-thumb we use when quoting:

• Packing-grade (MR, commercial hardwood): the default. Use for oilfield-service spares, valve crates, instrumentation boxes and general industrial export. Cost-efficient and tough enough for one-way sea movement.
• Okoume face-veneer (on packing or BWR substrate): Okoume is a face-veneer option on the packing and BWR grades, not a separate grade. Use it when the buyer's spec asks for a clean export face, or when the crate goes through multiple handling legs and visual presentation matters. Common on equipment heading from Khobar onward to European OEMs.
• BWR / shuttering-grade plywood: use when the load is humidity-exposed for long periods, when crates may sit outdoors at the port, or when the buyer is on the construction side rather than the equipment side. The Jubail expansion projects pull in shuttering ply directly.

For most Khobar oilfield-service buyers, MR-packing grade with 12 mm walls and 18 mm base, on a four-way pallet, lands the right balance of cost and protection.

FAQ

Common questions on Khobar shipments

Do you handle ISPM-15 compliance for Saudi entry?

Yes. All softwood members in our crates and pallets are heat-treated and stamped to ISPM-15. The plywood faces are exempt under the standard since they are engineered panels, but the load-bearing framework carries the mark.

Can you supply in knocked-down (flat-pack) form to save container space?

Yes. For Khobar buyers shipping in 20-foot containers, knocked-down crates with pre-drilled cleats and a numbered assembly sheet are a common request. We supply the fasteners separately, packed by crate.

What is the minimum order quantity for a Khobar shipment?

The practical minimum is one 20-foot container, roughly 280 sheets of 12 mm plywood, or about 60–80 medium crates flat-packed. Smaller volumes are possible through a freight consolidator, but the unit economics are usually better at one full container.

Get a quote

Send us the Khobar load details

If you are sourcing crates, pallets, container flooring or sheet plywood into Khobar or the wider Eastern Province, send us the load details: thickness, sheet sizes, crate drawings or pallet footprints, monthly volume and the Dammam consignee. We will come back with an ex-works Perumbavoor or CIF Dammam quotation, transit timing and the compliance paperwork list. Everything ships from our own facilities, where the group has manufactured in Perumbavoor since 1986. Start at our request a quote page, or browse specifications, grade tables and shipping notes on the resource hub before you write to us.

The industrial picture

Why Jubail moves the needle for a Kochi plywood manufacturer

Jubail Industrial City is the largest greenfield petrochemical and primary-industry estate in the world. A cluster of major petrochemical producers and a refining-and-petrochemical complex sit inside its perimeter, alongside an extended belt of EPC contractors building reactors, columns, valves, skids, heat exchangers and pre-assembled modules for the next phase of Vision 2030 expansion. Every one of those units leaves a factory floor packed in wood. That is the volume we exist to serve.

Industrial investment in Jubail crossed SAR 525 billion in 2022, and the Royal Commission for Jubail and Yanbu has earmarked another SAR 67.5 billion to double the city's footprint by 2030. For a packing-materials manufacturer that translates into four predictable demand pools.

Petrochemical and refining EPC

The petrochemical producers and the refining complex across the estate run continuous turnaround, debottlenecking and brownfield expansion cycles. Reactors, distillation internals, catalyst drums, spare exchanger bundles, instrumentation skids and process valves move in and out of these sites in heavy timber-sided crates and on engineered pallets every week.

Industrial Support Area and secondary industries

The Industrial Support Area inside Jubail-1 and the planned Jubail-3 expansion host fabricators making finished plastics, rubber goods, automotive components, home appliances and industrial machinery. These shippers send finished goods out through King Fahd Industrial Port and Jubail Commercial Port in standard crates and on four-way pallets.

Specialty chemicals, pharma and renewables

Specialty-chemicals plots, the planned pharmaceutical cluster and renewables-equipment fabricators all need export-grade packing that survives Gulf heat, sea-salt humidity and transhipment handling without warping or splitting.

Port logistics zone

The bonded logistics zone wired into both Jubail ports and the rail network is a steady consumer of one-way pallets and container flooring boards for fit-outs, container repair and stuffing operations.

What we ship

What we manufacture for Jubail consignments

Packing-grade plywood

Our packing-grade hardwood plywood is the workhorse for Jubail-bound crates. It is built for nailing, screwing and stapling without splitting at the edge, and it tolerates the humidity swings between Indian monsoon transit, sea voyage and Eastern Province summer storage. Standard offer below — ex-factory Perumbavoor, GST and freight extra.

Okoume-faced plywood

Okoume is a face-veneer option on our MR-Packing and BWR boards, not a separate grade. We recommend it when the consignee specifies a clean white-cream face for show-and-tell crates, brand-visible export packs, or pharma and specialty-chemical shipments where appearance and a tight, uniform face matter. Quoted on request because veneer availability moves with the market.

Crates and ISPM-15 boxes

We build crates to drawing — closed-box, open-crate, skid-mounted and collapsible. All export crates are ISPM-15 heat-treated and stamped, which is the only treatment Saudi Customs and the Jubail port authorities accept. Crate weights are calculated against the consignee's lift plan so the rigger inside the plant does not get a surprise at the laydown yard.

Pallets

Two-way and four-way pallets in standard 1200 x 1000 mm and 1200 x 800 mm, plus custom footprints for skid-mounted process equipment. Heat-treated and stencilled. We also build heavy-duty bearer-deck pallets for reactor internals and catalyst drums where the unit load can exceed 2 tonnes.

Container flooring

18 mm BWP plywood floorboards for container repair and re-flooring jobs inside the Jubail logistics zone. Cut to the standard 2400 x 1160 mm container plank, edge-sealed.

Logistics

Kochi-to-Jubail logistics

The sea distance from Kochi to Jubail's King Fahd Industrial Port is roughly 1,900 nautical miles. The practical route is Cochin Port (Vallarpadam ICTT) to either King Fahd Industrial Port for direct petrochem-plot deliveries, or Jubail Commercial Port for general containerised cargo with onward trucking into the industrial estates. Both ports are wired into the Saudi rail spine and the logistics zone behind them.

Typical transit window on direct services is 9 to 12 days, stretched to 14 to 18 days on transhipment legs via Jebel Ali or Khalifa Port. We palletise and band loads at our packing yard so that even after a transhipment the consignment opens cleanly at the Jubail laydown. King Fahd Industrial Port runs 34 berths with about 70 million tonnes per year of capacity, so berth congestion is rarely the constraint — documentation and ISPM-15 stamping discipline are.

Choosing a grade

Which board for which Jubail load

• Packing-grade plywood (commercial / rubberwood): default for the vast majority of Jubail-bound crates. Petrochem valves, instrumentation, exchanger bundles, machinery spares — anything where the crate is consumed at destination.
• Okoume face on MR-Packing or BWR core: when the consignee specifies a clean white face, when the shipment is brand-visible, or when humidity exposure on the laydown yard will run long.
• BWR / BWP-grade plywood: for container flooring, marine-side dunnage, and any crate that will sit uncovered in monsoon transit or Gulf coastal storage.
• Shuttering ply: not for export crates. Shuttering ply is for the civil-works side — Jubail-2 and Jubail-3 expansion concrete pours, RCJY infrastructure contracts, residential build-out. Quoted separately on civil tender.

FAQ

Jubail shipping questions

Do you handle ISPM-15 certification and stencilling in-house?

Yes. All export crates and pallets shipped to Jubail are heat-treated and ISPM-15 stencilled at our packing yard. The treatment certificate accompanies the shipping documents so the consignment clears Dammam and Jubail customs without a hold.

What is the minimum order size for a Jubail shipment?

One full 20-ft or 40-ft container is the comfortable minimum. We also consolidate smaller crate kits into mixed containers when a Jubail contractor needs a partial load, but the per-unit economics work better at one-container-and-up.

Can you ship straight to a plant plot, or only to the port?

We ship to the port. Onward trucking from King Fahd or Jubail Commercial Port into a specific petrochemical or refining plot is handled by the consignee's nominated clearing agent and inland transporter. We coordinate paperwork, packing list and treatment certificates so the handover is clean.

Get a quote

Talk to us about a Jubail consignment

If you are crating petrochem spares, building export pallets for a Jubail-bound shipment, or sourcing container flooring for a logistics-zone fit-out, send us the spec — thickness, sheet count or crate drawing, monthly tonnage and destination berth. We will come back with a packing-list quote, ISPM-15 treatment scope and a realistic Cochin Port sailing window. Our group has manufactured packing-grade plywood and crates in Perumbavoor since 1986, so the cutting lists and treatment discipline behind your consignment are built on forty years of group operations.

Request a quote with your packing list, or browse the resource hub for ISPM-15 guidance, crate-construction notes and grade-selection tables before you write the RFQ.

The industrial picture

Jeddah is the trade lung of the Red Sea

Jeddah Islamic Port handles the majority of Saudi Arabia's non-oil container traffic, the new economic city up the coast at Rabigh is pulling light-manufacturing and logistics tenants north, and the older industrial zones inside the city are still where most of the machinery, electrical and consumer-goods packing actually happens. For a plywood manufacturer that mix means a steady, year-round pull for export-grade packing material: crates for re-export machinery, pallets for cross-dock warehousing, and dunnage and container flooring for the long voyages onward to East Africa, the Levant and Europe. Kochi sits roughly 2,200 nautical miles from Jeddah on a direct east–west route, with no Suez transit and no Cape detour.

Buyers in Jeddah do not all sit in one zone. When we scope a quote we segment the city into four belts, because each one prefers a slightly different specification.

Jeddah Industrial City (Phases 1 to 4)

The industrial city south-east of the airport — Phases 1, 2, 3 and the newer Phase 4 — is the dense cluster: plastics, food processing, light electrical, building materials and a lot of contract-packing units. Demand here is mostly 12 mm and 18 mm packing-grade plywood for crate walls, plus EUR-footprint pallets for warehouse turn.

The economic city and Rabigh corridor

About 100 km north of Jeddah, the Industrial Valley tenants — automotive parts, food, and pharma and building-product packaging — typically want heat-treated ISPM-15 crates because their finished goods re-export across the GCC and to Europe. Spec creep is real here: buyers ask for IPPC-stamped lumber, sealed crate seams, and sometimes Okoume-faced panels for higher-end consumer goods.

Jeddah Islamic Port re-export sheds

Inside and around the port, freight forwarders and consolidators run shed-level packing: stuffing, re-crating and container load-out of transit cargo. The pull is fast — pallets and crate blanks off the shelf, not built to order.

The Makkah construction corridor

Up the Haramain corridor toward Makkah, project sites pull shuttering plywood for concrete work: film-faced 18 mm sheets rated for multiple re-use cycles. We quote film-faced shuttering ply with a hardwood core for this segment, not packing grade.

What we ship

Four product families for the Jeddah lane

The bulk of our Jeddah-bound volume falls into four families. Specifications below are typical; the final quote depends on the container plan, load weight and ISPM-15 status.

Packing-grade plywood (the workhorse)

BWR-bonded commercial and rubberwood plywood, 6 mm to 18 mm, in 8x4 sheets. The most common Jeddah ask is 12 mm for crate walls and 18 mm for top and bottom panels and skid boards. We supply in mill-pack bundles for container stuffing and can pre-cut to crate-blank sizes if the buyer's line is set up for it. The panel is moisture-tolerant for the Red Sea voyage and the Jeddah summer.

Okoume-faced panels

Okoume is a face-veneer option on the packing and BWR grades, not a separate grade. It goes out to the economic-city tenants and a handful of premium consumer-goods packers in Jeddah Industrial for the smoother face, the lighter weight (roughly 480–520 kg/m³ against 600+ for hardwood) and the cleaner stencil and branding surface. We quote the Okoume face on request — it sits at a different price point and is not interchangeable with standard packing grade.

Wooden crates, cases and pallets

Built to drawing in ISPM-15 (HT-stamped) form, sized to either standard EUR (1200x800) or ISO (1200x1000) footprints. We can ship them as flat-pack crate kits to save freight if the buyer runs a re-assembly bench; container loading for flat-pack kits is roughly 2.5x to 3x the assembled-crate equivalent.

Container flooring and dunnage

Heavy-duty 18 mm and 21 mm hardwood-core plywood for re-flooring reefer and dry containers, and as load-spreading dunnage under heavy machinery. Same lane, same lead time, usually bundled into a mixed container with packing-grade sheets.

Logistics

The Kochi to Jeddah lane

From Cochin Port (ICTT Vallarpadam) to Jeddah Islamic Port is approximately 2,200 nautical miles. Direct west-bound mainline services and a handful of feeder routings via Salalah or Jebel Ali run weekly. Sailing time is typically 9 to 14 days port to port depending on the service and any transhipment leg. No Suez transit is involved, which keeps both the cost and the risk profile below the Mediterranean routes.

On our side, inland trucking from Perumbavoor to Vallarpadam runs about 30 km — one of the shorter factory-to-gate hauls in India for an export lane this size. That short pre-carriage shrinks demurrage exposure and makes it practical to load on the same day the bill-of-lading date is confirmed. For full-container loads we coordinate stuffing at the factory or at a Cochin Port CFS, depending on whether the cargo needs to be palletised or stuffed loose.

ISPM-15 heat-treated and IPPC-stamped crates and pallets are the standard for the economic-city and re-export segments. We supply the certification copy with the shipping documents so customs and the phytosanitary check at Jeddah Islamic Port clear without flags.

Choosing a grade

Which grade for which Jeddah load

A short decision rule we apply when scoping a Jeddah quote.

FAQ

Questions from Jeddah buyers

Do you ship ISPM-15 / HT-stamped material?

Yes. ISPM-15 heat-treated and IPPC-stamped crates and pallets are the standard for the economic-city and re-export segments. We supply the certification copy with the shipping documents so customs and the phytosanitary check at Jeddah Islamic Port move without flags.

What is the minimum order for a Jeddah-bound container?

The economics start to make sense at about 12 to 15 tonnes of plywood — roughly a 20-foot container of 12 mm sheets, or about 700 to 800 sheets depending on the mix. Below that, LCL via the Cochin–Jeddah groupage services is workable but loses the freight advantage.

Can you palletise and shrink-wrap before stuffing?

Yes. Standard EUR or ISO pallets, strapped and shrink-wrapped at the factory, with a cargo manifest matched to the bill of lading. Useful for buyers who run an automated unloading line at the Jeddah end.

Get a quote

Price the full landed picture into Jeddah

If you are sourcing packing-grade plywood, crates, pallets or container flooring into Jeddah, the economic-city corridor or the Makkah belt, send the specifications across and we will price the full landed picture — material, ISPM-15 where needed, stuffing at Cochin Port, and the lane. Our group has manufactured plywood in Perumbavoor since 1986, and the Cochin to Jeddah route is one we have been working for several years.

You can request a quote directly, or browse the resource hub for grade comparisons, the BWP vs BWR explainer and the ISPM-15 crate cost guide before you send the enquiry. We typically come back with a working quote within one business day for standard specs, and within two for Okoume-faced or film-faced shuttering ply, where the panel stock has to be confirmed against the order.

The industrial picture

A coast that runs on heavy iron

Dammam runs on heavy iron. The national oil-and-gas operator's headquarters sits inland at Dhahran, a major petrochemical complex anchors the coast an hour north at Jubail, and King Abdulaziz Port at Dammam handles the largest container throughput in the Arabian Gulf. Every valve skid, compressor module, pre-fabricated pipe spool and spare-parts kit moving through this belt needs wooden packaging that survives sea salt, 48°C summers and rough port handling. That is the conversation we have with packers and freight forwarders in the Eastern Province almost every week.

"Dammam" on shipping documents usually means one of four overlapping zones, and knowing which one a consignment is headed to changes the packing brief.

Dammam's industrial belts at a glance

• Dammam 2nd & 3rd Industrial Cities — metal fabrication, engineering workshops, MRO yards and electrical-panel builders. Plenty of mid-weight crates (200–2,000 kg) moving out as project cargo.
• Jubail Industrial City (Jubail 1 & 2) — the downstream petrochem majors and their feed lines. Heavy equipment, catalyst drums and exchanger bundles. Crates here are big, weatherproof and frequently heat-treatment stamped for re-export.
• Dhahran Techno Valley and the oilfield-services belt — drill bits, wireline tools and downhole equipment shipped in returnable plywood cases that handle multiple field trips.
• King Abdulaziz Port logistics zone — consolidators and 3PLs running container freight stations. Their daily diet is pallets, dunnage, container flooring for re-conditioning and packing-grade ply by the bundle.

The sectors driving plywood demand are upstream oil-and-gas services, downstream petrochem maintenance, power-transformer movements between operator and contractor yards, and a steady stream of food, beverage and white-goods crating tied to the broader Eastern Province consumer economy.

What we ship

Sheets, crates, pallets and flooring in one container

Most Dammam orders combine three lines in one container: sheet plywood for the buyer's own crate shop, ready-made crates for high-value modules, and pallets or container-flooring boards. A typical container looks like this.

Crate construction notes

For Jubail-bound petrochem cargo we default to an 18 mm BWR-glued plywood shell on a 75×75 mm or 100×100 mm hardwood frame, corner-braced, with skid runners sized for the buyer's forklift truck (usually 7 t–15 t at Eastern Province yards). Every batten and runner is ISPM-15 heat-treated and stamped at source, so the crate clears Saudi customs and is re-exportable to Bahrain, the UAE or onward to Europe without a second fumigation cycle.

Pallet sizes that actually move in Dammam

Eastern Province buyers split roughly between the 1200×1000 mm footprint (used by GCC retail and most consumer-goods distributors) and the 1100×1100 mm oilfield-friendly size that fits kit boxes and warehouse racks at contractor yards. We manufacture both as 4-way entry with a notched bottom deck so a hand pallet truck can pick from any side. A small detail, but the one buyers call out most often.

Logistics

Kochi to Dammam, lane and lead times

The sea distance from Cochin Port (Kochi) to King Abdulaziz Port (Dammam) via the Arabian Sea, Gulf of Oman, Strait of Hormuz and the Persian Gulf is roughly 1,900 nautical miles. Direct services are rare; almost all FCL bookings transship at Jebel Ali (UAE), and increasingly at Khalifa Port (Abu Dhabi) or Hamad (Qatar).

• Port-to-port transit: typically 14–21 days from Cochin to Dammam, depending on the transshipment window at Jebel Ali.
• Door-to-port lead time from our Perumbavoor cluster: 3–4 days for inland trucking to Cochin Port plus customs and stuffing.
• Realistic total lead time: plan 4–5 weeks from PO to vessel arrival at Dammam, plus the buyer's customs clearance.
• Documentation: commercial invoice, packing list, Certificate of Origin, ISPM-15 declaration for wood packaging, and any SASO / SABER paperwork the buyer needs at the Saudi end.

One operational note: for oilfield-linked contractors we keep the ISPM-15 stamp visible on at least two faces of every crate and every pallet stringer. Inspectors at King Abdulaziz Port reject loads where the heat-treatment mark sits on a hidden surface, even when the paperwork is in order.

Choosing a grade

Which grade for which Dammam job?

A simple decision rule we share with first-time Dammam buyers.

1. Standard MR packing-grade plywood — default for inland-handled cargo, short-cycle crates, dunnage and case linings. Lowest landed cost.
2. BWR packing-grade plywood — the right call for anything moving by sea container to the humid Gulf coast, anything that may sit at a port yard, and any returnable case used by oilfield services that bounces between fields and contractor workshops.
3. Okoume-faced BWR plywood — chosen by exhibition logistics, instrumentation packers and downstream petrochem buyers who want a clean light-coloured face on crates that go into client-facing locations. Higher price point; the face holds up better through repeat handling.
4. Phenolic shuttering ply (film-faced) — used in Dammam mainly for container re-flooring and for crate floor panels under very heavy point loads such as skid-mounted compressors and transformers.

A note on terminology: Okoume in our catalogue is a face veneer applied to a BWR-glued plywood, not a separate grade. Specify the glue (MR or BWR), the face veneer (commercial, Okoume or Gurjan) and the thickness. Our team can match a sample if you are replacing an existing import line.

FAQ

Dammam buyer questions

Do you provide ISPM-15 certification with every shipment?

Yes. All wood packaging headed to Saudi Arabia is heat-treated and stamped at source, and the ISPM-15 declaration is included in the shipping documents. Stamps are placed on visible faces of crates, pallets and dunnage.

Can you ship LCL for trial orders?

For first-time Dammam buyers we routinely ship LCL through Jebel Ali consolidation for trial loads of 5–10 cbm. Once specs are locked, most buyers move to 20'/40' FCL on a recurring lane.

What is the minimum order quantity?

For plain sheet plywood, one 20' FCL (roughly 320–360 sheets of 18 mm depending on configuration) is the practical minimum. For ready-made crates and pallets we quote either by unit count or by the container, depending on what the project needs.

Get a quote

Get a Dammam quote

If you handle packing or freight for a Dammam, Jubail or Dhahran consignor and want a working quote — sheet ply, crates, pallets, container flooring or a mixed load — share thickness, glue, sizes, monthly volume and your delivery point. We price ex-Kochi (FOB) and CFR Dammam through the standard Jebel Ali transship, both in one PI. Request a quote with your spec sheet, or browse our resource hub for ISPM-15 notes, plywood grade guides and packing-case sizing tables before you write the RFQ. Our group has manufactured and supplied packing plywood out of Perumbavoor since 1986, and Dammam is one of the GCC lanes we plan around every month.