Jizan (Saudi Arabia, JEC-Jazan City)

Jazan/Jizan (aka Gazan/Gizan is a Red Sea port city and Saudi Arabia's Jizan Region/Province's capital, with population around 320,000 (metro over 1,5 million). The city and the region are served by Jizan Regional Airport (aka King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz Airport) located approx 60 km / 40 mi to the south of the city.

Near Jizan, Saudi Aramco (Saudi Arabian Oil Group, 1933-founded, Dhahran-based petroleum and natural gas company) built a large oil terminal with a refinery with capacity ~400,000 bpd (barrels per day). Aramco's Jazan Refinery process heavy and medium crude oil serving as a source for producing LPG (liquefied petroleum gas), sulfur, asphalt, benzene, p-Xylene (para-xylene).

Port Jizan (locode SAGIZ) by annual shipping/cargo traffic is currently ranked Saudi Arabia's 3rd-largest on the Red Sea. Agriculture exports include grain (barley millet, wheat), coffee beans, fruits (bananas, grapes, mangoes, apples, papayas, plums, citrus). Port Jazan was established in 1976. It covers an area of approx 4,2 km2 (1,6 mi2) and has three access channels and one terminal with a total of 12 docks/berths. The Port's annual cargo capacity is around 5 million tons. Passenger terminals are available at both Jizan Port and Farasan Island (approx 50 km / 30 mi offshore from the city). The Port is managed by MAWANI (1976-founded Saudi Ports Authority) which supervises all of Saudi Arabia's seaports, including Jeddah Islamic Port, Port Dammam, Port Yanbu (Industrial and Commercial), Port Jubail (Industrial and Commercial), Ras Al-Khair Port (Industrial), Jizan Port (Industrial and Commercial), and Dhiba Port/Tabuk.

Jizan Airport serves regularly scheduled flights (by Air Arabia, flyDubai, flyEgypt, Nile Air, as well as the Saudi airlines Flynas, Flyadeal, Saudia) linking to the UAE (Sharjah, Dubai), Egypt (Cairo), and Saudi Arabia's cities Abha, Dammam, Jeddah, Riyadh, Tabuk, Taif.

The city became the region's hub for shipping, transportation, energy-related, processing and manufacturing industries, agriculture and tourism, with multi-billion-dollar infrastructure development projects, the largest of which is JEC/Jazan Economic City.

Jazan Economic City/JEC

JEC is road-connected to Jizan City (approx 60 km / 40 mi to the southeast) and to Baysh (24 km / 15 mi to the north) adjacent to which (further up north along the coastline) is Baysh Park/nature reserve.

JEC covers an area of approximately 100 km2 / 37 mi2 (12x8 km) and is expected to support around 0,5 million jobs (out of the Province's population of ~1,2 million) and will be railway-connected to Jeddah (approx 600 km / 370 mi to the northwest of Jazan).

JEC focuses on heavy industries (processing of locally sourced raw materials), secondary industries (high-tech, technology, commerce, trade), human capital (employment, education, training) and lifestyle (workers' housing, tourism).

JEC has four main districts - CBD (Commercial Business District/in downtown), industrial zone, residential zone, and community centers, arranged in concentric circles running out of the CBD. On the coastline are built a powerplant (steam-based, using crude oil), a desalination plant (producing potable water, with daily capacity ~0,5 million m3), as well as fuel oil storage facilities.

The JEC project (construction and development) is largely based on two companies - MMC Corporation Berhad (1911-founded Malaysian holding specializing in energy and utilities, ports and logistics, Engineering, also one of the world's top-10 container port operators) and Binladin Group Global Holding Company (1931-founded as SBG/Saudi Binladin Group, Jeddah-based Saudi Arabian holding specializing in construction). Among SBG's largest projects are Jeddah Tower (in Jeddah) and Doha Metro (in Doha Qatar).