The Saudi Ports Authority (Mawani) has recently announced the addition of three new shipping services to King Abdulaziz Port in Dammam, Saudi Arabia, connecting it with several major ports around the world.
On 27 May 2025, it was announced that Evergreen’s new shipping service, known as ‘ARPG’, had been added to the port.
The new service links King Abdulaziz Port with nine ‘major regional and global ports’. These ports include: Port Klang in Malaysia; Laem Chabang in Thailand; Vung Tau in Vietnam; Kaohsiung in Taiwan; Yantian, Ningbo and Shanghai in China; Umm Qasr in Iraq; and Jebel Ali in the UAE.
The service from Taiwanese-headquartered shipping company Evergreen has a total capacity of 9,466 TEUs.
Then on 12 June, Mawani announced that MSC’s ‘Himalaya Express’ shipping service would be added to King Abdulaziz Port.
This service, which offers a handling capacity of up to 14,000 TEUs, connects the port in Dammam, and Jubail Commercial Port also in Saudi Arabia, with 12 others: Jebel Ali and Abu Dhabi in the UAE; Hamad Port in Qatar; Nhava Sheva, Mundra and Vizhinjam in India; Sines in Portugal; Valencia, Barcelona and Malaga in Spain; and Gioia Tauro and Genoa in Italy.
And finally, on 13 June, another MSC service was added. Known as ‘Chinook Clanga’, this service has the same handling capacity as Himalaya Express, and links King Abdulaziz Port and Jubail Commercial Port with 16 other ports: Khalifa Bin Salman Port in Bahrain; Hamad Port in Qatar; Nhava Sheva in India; Colombo in Sri Lanka; Singapore, Vung Tau and Haiphong in Vietnam; Nansha, Yantian, Ningbo, Shanghai and Qingdao in China; Busan in South Korea; Seattle in the US; and Vancouver and Prince Rupert in Canada.
This move, Mawani says, further strengthens maritime connectivity between Saudi Arabia and international markets, and also ‘reinforces the port’s strategic standing [and] boosts its competitiveness for exporters, importers and shipping agents’.
Mawani adds that these initiatives reflect its broader efforts to ‘elevate Saudi Arabia’s ranking on global performance indices and to improve the operational efficiency of King Abdulaziz Port’.
It is hoped that initiatives like thes which support the movement of national exports and imports in alignment with the objectives of Saudi Arabia’s National Transport and Logistics Strategy (NTLS), will ‘solidify the Kingdom’s standing as a global logistics hub bridging the three continents’.
The news of these additions comes after Mawani announced a 13% year-on-year increase in container volumes at Saudi ports in May 2025. A similar increase was reported by Mawani in April (13.43%) and March (13.61%).
READ MORE: Saudi Ports Authority records 13.61% year-on-year increase in container handling in March 2025
