This paper highlights the achievements that have been realized in the period since Yanbu Al-Sinaiyah was first conceived. In a little more than two decades the desert site has become a flourishing community of 45,000 population, and the economic catalyst for the Yanbu region. The magnitude of the achievements are described in terms of industry, the community and the infrastructure to support this development. 

2 - BACKGROUND

A review of progress at five-year intervals is presented below:

1980:  Earthwork and site preparation were under way, and major infrastructure systems were being designed and built. Temporary housing for construction staff was in place.

1985:  Five heavy industries were complete, as well as several smaller facilities in the light industrial park.   The core of a residential community was in place, including nearly 6,500 permanent housing units, schools, a hospital, and other public facilities.   Major infrastructure facilities were in operation: power and water systems, a wastewater treatment plant, a telecommunications network, roads, an airport, and a 15 kilometer-long port complex.

1990:  Due to the world-wide recession, the rate of industrial investment had slowed considerably.

1995:  Four new secondary industries had begun operations, and two other major industrial facilities were being built.  A new boom in residential construction was also well under way.

Today:  Several additional sites in the light industrial park and the heavy industrial park, where the petrochemical industries are concentrated, are occupied.   In the community, extensive residential development is occurring, and there is a current population of 45,000.

3 - THE ACHIEVEMENTS 

Yanbu Al-Sinaiyah is more than industry and infrastructure.  It is a complete city.  This includes reliable utilities, spacious and attractive housing, excellent educational and health care facilities, and numerous shops, parks and recreational opportunities. This has been realized in a short period of less than 25 years.  These achievements are described as follows:

3.1 Population and Employment

In 25 years the population of the city has risen from zero to over 45,000, with an annual growth rate of approximately 9% over the past ten-year period.  This significant rate of growth is attributable in part to the high pace of Saudization in the city. 

In 1980 the total number of Saudi employees on site was 280 (or 3.6% of total employment), whereas by 1997 there were almost 10,000 Saudis who were employed in the major industries, the government and other sectors.  This latter figure equates to 35% of the total work force and may be positively compared to the 39% figure for Riyadh with its large Government component and established nature of the Kingdom’s capital city.

With respect to population, 72% of the residents are Saudi.  Since 1990, the expatriate population has increased by 32% as compared to almost 125% increase in the number of Saudis living in the city. The Saudi population is characterized by being relatively young, with over 70% being less than 30 years of age.

The large number of Saudis and the high level of Saudization in Yanbu Al-Sinaiyah has been achieved due to the employment opportunities offered by the industrial complex and the attributes of the modern community, with its high quality housing and public facilities, and landscaping of the area.

3.2 Housing

The first construction camps consisted of light, prefabricated buildings, erected quickly to create the homes, offices, mess halls, and other facilities needed by the growing numbers of workers arriving at the site. These together with temporary family units accommodated a workforce of approximately 40,000 at its peak in the early 1980’s.

Since that time, the permanent community has been designed and now there are over 10,000 houses and over 13,000 dormitory units available for accommodation.   This includes detached villas, townhouses, and multi family apartment complexes.

In accordance with Kingdom policies there has been a change from Royal Commission to private sector involvement in the provision of housing.  Although to date the majority of the accommodation has been supplied by the Royal Commission, the private sector is actively involved in the housing market.  Currently there are over 1,000 existing private sector built units with a further 3,000 units either under construction or have been approved.  This represents a significant percentage of the total housing in the community and attests to the economic viability and attractiveness of the community for the private developer.

3.3 Education

Recognizing the importance of human resources, the Royal Commission has built schools at Yanbu Al-Sinaiyah that provide a model educational environment for children, as well as for adults who may require technical training.

To date, 23 Kindergarten, primary, intermediate, and secondary schools have been constructed in the community and are accommodating almost 10,000 students.   Well-qualified instructors and low teacher-to-student ratios ensure that every child’s learning needs are met.  Teaching is complemented by the widespread use of computers and modern, up-to-date scientific equipment.

To supply skilled Saudi manpower for Yanbu Al-Sinaiyah, the Royal Commission gave early priority to planning and building a comprehensive training facility in the city, able to house nearly 1,000 boarding students.  Approximately 85% of the students are from outside the area, spreading the benefits well beyond the local population.  To date, more than 2,000 young men have graduated from manpower training programs at Yanbu Industrial College.  The college has now become a leading supplier of trained manpower for the city’s industries and for other private and public sector employers in the Kingdom.

3.4 Health Care

A modern, fully equipped, 342-bed hospital built by the Royal Commission is a major achievement in health care. The medical facility is among the most advanced in the Kingdom between Jeddah and Tabuk, and is used by many people in the region for specialized treatment.  Over 40% of the patients admitted to the hospital in the most recent year for which data are available were from outside Yanbu Al-Sinaiyah. Public health programs and conveniently located outpatient clinics and health centers provide city residents with general medical, maternal, and dental care of the highest standard.

3.5 Mosques

Currently, the Royal Commission maintains 25 mosques located throughout Yanbu Al-Sinaiyah, with most designed in conjunction with neighborhood centers, parks, or other facilities within convenient walking distance of residences.  In keeping with their purpose, the mosques are among the cities’ most beautiful buildings.

3.6 Commercial Facilities

Commercial development has paralleled the changing character of the industrial city. Almost 300 commercial establishments are operational in Yanbu Al-Sinaiyah. In addition, the project has been a major stimulus that has transformed the neighboring city of Yanbu Al-Bahr into a vibrant commercial center.  Today, commercial establishments in the Yanbu area offer residents nearly all the goods and services that can be found in other cities around the Kingdom, including retail stores, banks, travel agencies, restaurants, and a variety of other businesses.

3.7 Recreation and Parks

To satisfy residents’ leisure and recreation needs, the Royal Commission has achieved development of a wide array of active and passive recreation facilities in the city. Residential areas are interspersed with playgrounds, parks, and football fields, providing recreational opportunities conveniently accessible to every resident.

A recreational island, marina and series of waterfront parks were created in conjunction with the massive earth-moving program.  With these opportunities, Yanbu Al-Sinaiyah is becoming a magnet for recreational activities for visitors who escape to the Yanbu region on weekends from urban areas elsewhere in the Kingdom.  The  cultural facilities of Yanbu Al-Sinaiyah include libraries and the only museum in the area.

3.8  Landscaping

Creative and extensive use of landscaping and open spaces has been a hallmark of planning and design in Yanbu Al-Sinaiyah.  The result is a community with breathing space, reminiscent of traditional Saudi communities, yet more abundantly endowed with landscaping than other municipalities in the Kingdom.

Residential neighborhoods, public buildings, roadsides, and even factory boundaries feature a variety of plant life. To date, approximately 200,000 trees and shrubs have been planted with hundreds of different plant species that have carefully selected to thrive in the city.   Most of the water used for irrigation at Yanbu Al-Sinaiyah is reclaimed potable water that has been upgraded in the sanitary wastewater treatment plants, making efficient use of precious water resources. Through use of innovative drip-irrigation systems, optimum use of a limited resource has been achieved to create a distinctive “garden city” environment.

4 - INDUSTRY

The major Industries are the driving force behind the successful economic and social growth of the community and the surrounding region, and have been central to the Kingdom’s long-term objectives of economic diversification, import substitution, and manpower development. Yanbu Al-Sinaiyah has already become the second largest industrial complex in the Kingdom.

The industries use Saudi Arabia’s petroleum resources and other raw materials to generate value-added domestic and export products. These enterprises fall in three categories – 1) primary, 2) secondary and 3) light manufacturing and support industries.

4.1 Primary Industries

A 64-square-kilometer area has been set aside for primary and secondary industry development at Yanbu Al-Sinaiyah. Within this heavy industrial park, eight primary industries, representing a total investment of SR40 billion (over $10 billion), are currently in production or about to start up. Each project, with its customized requirements, represents a major achievement and success in its own sight.  Collectively, they form a complex of tremendous size and importance.

Primary industries are world scale, and these enterprises have put Yanbu Al-Sinaiyah on the international map as an important center for the export of crude oil, processed petroleum products, and bulk petrochemicals. They have also provided feed stocks integral to the support of downstream secondary and tertiary industries.

4.2 Secondary Industries

A dozen secondary industries, with a combined total investment of over SR4.5 billion ($1.2 billion), are in operation or about to start up.   These include plants producing lube oil products, solvents, pigments and polyester yarn. Additional secondary industries are in various stages of planning and design. Among these are several projects sponsored by SABIC and affiliated companies.

4.3 Light Manufacturing and Support Industries

Thirty-six plants, with a total investment value of approximately SR900 million ($250 million), are currently located or are about to begin operation in the 400-hectare Light Industrial Park. These represent a broad range of industrial enterprises.

Some firms create products, such as paints and fiberglass lightpoles, that support local industrial operations and community needs. Several provide services, like electric motor rewinding and steel fabrication.   Still others make food products, plastic items, and other merchandise for domestic and regional markets. The success of this industrial sector underscores the wisdom of the overall development strategy employed.

5 - INFRASTRUCTURE

At the start of the project, Yanbu Al-Sinaiyah site was totally unimproved – it lacked everything required to support even a minimal level of human existence, let alone major industrial development. The challenge was to provide power, water, roads, communications, and all other facilities and services required by a modern city.

5.1 Earthmoving

Rough-grading was the first step required in the construction program in order to provide level sites, control surface water runoff, and improve soil structure for building and road foundations. Cut-and-fill operations and dredging have relocated over 70 million cubic meters of earth. In the process, the minimum land elevation within city boundaries was raised by two meters. Along the waterfront, millions of meters of soil and seabed have been scoured out to create a band of blue water and an artificial island, which has been set aside for recreational use.

5.2 Storm Drainage

The Yanbu Al-Sinaiyah site is located within the flood plain of Wadi Al-Furra’a, which drains an area of approximately 4,700 square kilometers in the Hejaz Mountains northeast of the city.   To protect the new city, a flood control channel has been built around the city’s entire landward side, with its main feature a 37-kilometer-long 400-meter-wide, 3 meter-high embankment, which intercepts stormwater runoff and diverts it around the city to the sea. It forms a protective wall around the entire major investment.

The drainage system was severely tested in December 1993, when a major storm dumped nearly 150 mm of rain on the city in a matter of hours. In spite of the torrential downpour, the storm drainage system successfully provided flood protection.

5.3 Roads

The primary and secondary road network, which covers nearly 450 kilometers, provides for rapid, safe, and convenient travel within the city.  To gain the appreciation of the total length of this road system, it should be noted that it is greater than the distance between Yanbu Al-Sinaiyah and Jeddah.

5.4 Power and Water

The heart of the city’s utility network is a unique cogeneration facility that produces both power and desalinated water for the city while supplying seawater for industrial cooling.  Besides being versatile, this plant has certain design features, including multiple fuel use and alternative steam supplies that make it extremely reliable.

Also in the central utility complex, water from the Red Sea is fed to desalination units. The desalination units at Yanbu Al-Sinaiyah can produce over 75,000 cubic meters of fresh water per day.

The industries require huge amounts of seawater to cool process operations.  Roughly 60% of the seawater that passes through the pump station in the city’s main power and water complex goes to supply process cooling water industry. With the ability to pump 9.6 million cubic meters of water a day, the Yanbu Al-Sinaiyah facility is the largest pressurized cooling system in the world.

5.5 Wastewater Treatment and Reuse

Yanbu Al-Sinaiyah tries to maximize the use of desalinated water through the treatment and reuse of all wastewater.   Industrial effluents are collected and treated in a special system that has been installed as part of the infrastructure in the industrial parks.  Following treatment, this wastewater is pumped back to the industrial areas for reuse.  Sanitary wastewater is collected from all over the city and treated similarly.  The resulting high-quality effluent is then reused as irrigation water.

5.6 Solid Waste Disposal 

Organic wastes, plus sludge from the sanitary wastewater treatment plant, are processed in the city’s compost plant.  This facility – for many years the only of its kind in Saudi Arabia – has a design production capacity of 450 cubic meters per day.  The high-quality compost it can produce is capable of being used to enrich soil in the city’s parks and gardens.  Other wastes are transported to a 440-hectare sanitary landfill, located in a far corner of the industrial area.

5.7 Telecommunications

The telephone system offers nearly 25,000 lines, fully automatic access to domestic and international networks, thanks to a broad range of technologies including fiber optics, coaxial supercable, microwave systems, satellite relay, and digital switching.

5.8 King Fahd Industrial Port

King Fahd Industrial Port extends along 15 kilometers of coastline and is the largest oil and petrochemicals exporting complex on the Red Sea.  The port comprises seven terminals with 25 berths, a service harbor, bulk cargo and container handling equipment, and marine support facilities. 

Over the years, the crude oil terminal has pumped billions of barrels of oil destined for markets around the world.   The capabilities of the crude oil terminal were demonstrated from the very beginning, when the Chevron North America berthed there in 1983, shortly after the port’s dedication.  With a capacity of nearly 500,000 deadweight tons, this supertanker is one of the largest vessels ever to sail the seas.  It was loaded easily with no mishaps and no delays, attesting to the success of the planning, design and construction effort.

6 - REGIONAL ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT

The development of Yanbu Al-Sinaiyah has been the catalyst for growth in the Yanbu region, and this is seen in the economic vitality revived of Yanbu Al-Bahr, and the growth of many villages in the region.

When the project to construct an industrial city was begun, Yanbu Al-Bahr had a population of approximately 17,000, and a limited economic base. Today, it has been transformed to a thriving administrative and commercial center with a population approaching 100,000.  The future of Yanbu Al-Sinaiyah and Yanbu Al-Bahr are increasingly interwoven as the area becomes an important sub-regional urban center.

7 - ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION

In contrast to many other parts of the world, development has been achieved in concert with environmental values.  Highly prized coral reef and mangrove swamp habitats have been preserved.  Rigorous standards have been applied to protect human health and environmental resources.  Awards received from the Regional Organization for protection of the Marine Environment and from the United Nations are testament to the successful integration of economic and environmental considerations.

8 - CONCLUSION

A massive planning and development effort has transformed the desert site into a world class industrial complex and a model residential community. In spite of daunting physical, climatic and infrastructure constraints, a city-building process that usually takes many decades, if not centuries, has been accomplished within a single generation.

Today, Yanbu Al-Sinaiyah has been transformed from a construction site to a self-supporting city that is the economic engine driving the growth and increasing prosperity of a formerly stagnant region. The city is now in the process of charting its course over the next 20-25 years, determining how best to face the challenges confronting a dynamic and growing area.

REFERENCES

Royal Commission for Jubail and Yanbu, Directorate General for Yanbu Project, Investment Promotion Department. Undated. Yanbu Industrial City Facts and Figures.

Royal Commission for Jubail and Yanbu, Directorate General for Yanbu Project. January 1977. Madinat Yanbu Al-Sinaiyah Master Plan.

Saudi Arabian Parsons Limited. August 1977. Yanbu Industrial Complex: A Master Plan Prepared for the Royal Commission for Jubail and Yanbu.