Bitumen Asphaltive · Middle East Supply Desk

Saudi Arabia market · Two coasts, one extreme climate

Bitumen Supply to Saudi Arabia: Grades, Extreme Heat and Two Coasts of Ports

Saudi Arabia is the largest road market on the Arabian Peninsula and the most demanding climate on this site to write a binder specification for. Two things have to be held in mind at once. The first is scale: a national network linking population centres separated by hundreds of kilometres of open desert, an urban and arterial programme in Riyadh, Jeddah, Makkah, Madinah and the Eastern Province cities, and a development programme that has put new road, industrial and logistics pavement into parts of the country that had very little of it. The second is heat, and heat of a particular kind. Summer pavement temperatures here are among the highest anywhere, but the Kingdom does not fail binders in one way. The Red Sea and Gulf coasts are hot and humid, with nights that give the pavement almost no relief. The interior is hot and dry with a genuine day-to-night swing, and winter nights at Riyadh’s altitude and further north are cold enough that the low-temperature end of a specification stops being a formality. Above the south-western escarpment there is a highland belt that behaves like a different country altogether. On top of that sits a logistics fact that catches first-time exporters: Saudi Arabia has two coasts, they face two different seas through two different maritime approaches, and they are separated by a haul across the peninsula long enough that landing a cargo on the wrong side of the country is not an inconvenience but a commercial error. This page sets out the climate argument in full, which penetration and performance grades it pushes toward, what a high PG grade actually implies about whether the binder was reached by a stiff base or by polymer modification, the port structure on both coasts and the inland dry ports behind them, how conformity assessment on imports is structured as a mechanism and what a buyer has to produce, and what a Saudi summer does to a steel drum standing on a quay.

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At a glance

Two coasts, two marketsThe Red Sea ports and the Gulf ports are separated by the width of the peninsula. They are reached through different seas, they serve different halves of the country, and a cargo landed on the wrong one carries a very long inland haul it did not need to.

The high-temperature end dominatesSustained extreme summer pavement temperature makes rutting the governing failure mode almost everywhere. That points to 40/50, to the harder half of 60/70, and to performance grades at the top of the high-temperature scale.

But the low end is not always irrelevantRiyadh sits at altitude with a wide diurnal swing and cold winter nights. The northern interior sees genuine frost. The Asir highlands are cooler still. A binder chosen only for a Jeddah July is wrong in three regions.

A drum in the sun is a design caseBitumen 60/70 softens in the range its own softening point describes. A dark steel drum standing on an open quay in August is not in ambient conditions, and packing has to be specified against that, not against a warehouse.

2Coasts, and they are separate markets

~950 kmJeddah to Riyadh, commonly cited

40/50Where the summer heat points

2713.20HS code

Market summary

The largest road programme in the Gulf, and the hardest climate to write a binder clause for

Most country pages on this site answer one question: what does this market consume and how does material reach it. Saudi Arabia needs three answers, because the Kingdom is large enough to contain several distinct climates, it has two seaboards that do not serve each other, and it is not, by default, an import market at all.

Saudi Arabia occupies the great majority of the Arabian Peninsula. Its population is concentrated in a small number of very large centres separated by long stretches of open desert: Riyadh and the central Najd region in the interior; Jeddah, Makkah, Madinah and Taif in the west; Dammam, Dhahran, Al Khobar, Jubail and Al Ahsa in the Eastern Province on the Gulf; Abha, Khamis Mushait and Jizan in the south-west; and a thinner northern belt through Tabuk, Al Jouf, Arar and Turaif. Between those clusters the trunk network runs for hundreds of kilometres at a time across country with almost no intermediate demand on it. That geometry — a few very large nodes, very long links, and a road system that has to carry both urban traffic and long-distance heavy freight — is the structural reason the Kingdom is the largest binder consumer in the Gulf.

The demand behind the enquiries is correspondingly varied. Trunk and expressway construction and rehabilitation on the inter-regional network; urban arterial, ring road and resurfacing work run by the municipal authorities in the major cities; industrial pavement, hardstanding and access roads in the industrial cities and around ports, mines and processing sites; airport and logistics-zone pavement; and a programme of large development projects that has put new road building into regions of the country that previously carried very little. None of those buyers writes the same binder clause, and that is the first thing to internalise before quoting.

This is not, by default, an import market

Almost every other market page on this site describes a country that has to import its binder. Saudi Arabia does not fit that shape. The Kingdom is a major oil producer and a substantial refiner with a functioning domestic bitumen market and domestic bulk distribution, and a Saudi contractor’s default is to buy at home. That single fact reorganises an export enquiry, and an exporter who does not understand it will write the wrong offer.

An importer here is normally buying for a specific reason, and it is worth asking which one, because the answer decides what the offer actually has to prove:

A grade or a product that is not conveniently available in the volume or on the timing the project needs — frequently a harder penetration grade, a specific performance grade, or a modified binder for a defined section of pavement rather than for a whole contract.
A test schedule or certificate the client insists on that a general domestic supply does not routinely carry: a performance grading with full dynamic shear, pressure ageing vessel and bending beam data, an MSCR result, a low-temperature line, or third-party inspection at the loading point.
A delivery point that is closer to a port than to anything else, which in a country this size is a real category rather than a curiosity.
Packed product rather than bulk, because the receiving site has no heated tankage and the project wants drums it can store and heat one unit at a time.
A commercial moment — and if that is the answer, say so honestly and price it honestly.

The practical consequence is that a Saudi enquiry is usually more technically specific than an enquiry from a market that has no alternative. The buyer is choosing to import, so the offer has to be better on some dimension that is written down. Vague reassurance loses here faster than it loses anywhere else on this site.

Two coasts, and they are not one market with two doors

Saudi Arabia has a long Red Sea coast on the west and a shorter Gulf coast on the east, and the two are reached from entirely different directions. A vessel calling on the Red Sea side enters that sea either from the north through the Suez Canal or from the south through the Bab el-Mandeb strait. A vessel calling on the Gulf side enters through the Strait of Hormuz and the Gulf of Oman. Those are different routings, different sailing patterns and, for many origins, different services altogether.

Behind the ports the split continues. The Red Sea ports face Jeddah, Makkah, Madinah, Taif, Yanbu and the western and north-western regions. The Gulf ports face the Eastern Province, Al Ahsa, Jubail and — critically — Riyadh, which is much closer to the Gulf coast than to the Red Sea coast. Commonly cited road distances put Jeddah to Riyadh at roughly 950 km and Dammam to Riyadh at roughly 400 km, with Jeddah to Dammam across the peninsula longer than either. Those figures are approximations given for orientation, and an actual routing is a forwarder’s job, but the shape is unmistakable: for a cargo as heavy and as low in value density as binder, the coast you land on decides a large part of the landed cost, and it is decided by where the project is, not by which port is famous.

The climate argument, stated once and then developed

The Kingdom’s summer sets the specification, but it does not set one specification. Three regimes matter and they fail binder differently:

The two coasts are hot and humid. Daytime maxima are extreme, humidity is high, and — the point most often missed — night minima stay high, so the pavement does not cool down between days. The binder sits at high temperature for long unbroken periods, which is the most severe possible version of the rutting case. Humidity also brings a moisture-damage question in the mix and an aggressive corrosion environment for packed goods.
The interior is hot and dry with a genuine diurnal swing. Riyadh sits at altitude, the air is dry, and the ground radiates heat away at night. Daytime pavement temperature is still severe, but the binder cycles a long way every twenty-four hours, and in winter the nights at Riyadh, in the Qassim and further north are genuinely cold, with frost recorded in the northern interior.
The south-western highlands are a different country. Taif and Abha sit high enough that summer is mild by Saudi standards and winter nights are cold, with rainfall patterns unlike anywhere else in the Kingdom.

So the honest summary is the one the rest of this page develops: the high-temperature end of the specification dominates almost everywhere, but the low-temperature end is not always irrelevant, and a single national grade recommendation is wrong in at least three regions.

How this differs from the neighbouring markets

It is worth naming the differences explicitly, because a buyer comparing offers will be comparing across them. The UAE is a compact market whose whole territory sits within a modest drive of its ports, and it carries gateways on two seas of its own — the Gulf coast ports reached through the Strait of Hormuz, and the east coast at Fujairah on the Gulf of Oman outside it — together with a free-zone re-export function; distance is not the variable there, and there is no equivalent of a 950 km inland haul. Iraq has extreme summer heat in the centre and south and genuine mountain winters in the north, but its problem is a sea gateway in the wrong corner of the country and a live choice between sea arrival and land crossing. Saudi Arabia’s distinguishing feature is different from both: the combination of sheer scale with a climate that is extreme at the top of the range and, in specific regions, not benign at the bottom of it — delivered across two seaboards that do not substitute for each other.

The five things that decide a Saudi order

Which region the project is in. Not the country and not even the province: the town. It decides the coast, the inland haul, the climate zone and therefore the grade.
Which coast the cargo should land on. Red Sea or Gulf. This is a routing decision made before the price, not after it.
Which specification system the tender uses. Penetration grading and performance grading both appear on this market, and a grade in one cannot be inferred from a grade in the other.
Whether the conformity mechanism reaches this product on this date. A question for a licensed customs broker in the Kingdom, in writing, before the contract.
What the packing has to survive. Not the voyage — the destination. Packed bitumen standing in the Saudi sun is exposed to conditions most packing specifications were never written for.

What this page does not tell you

It does not state that any port, berth, terminal, road, railway, dry port or crossing is open today, running to a schedule, equipped for this commodity or available for your cargo. Geography is described because geography is stable and publicly checkable; operating status is not, it changes, and it belongs to the freight forwarder who is accountable for it. Road distances are commonly cited approximations for orientation and nothing more. No transit times, freight rates, vehicle payloads, vessel or tanker capacities, port throughput or draught figures, container free time periods, detention charges, duty rates, taxes or levies appear anywhere. No refinery, terminal operator, shipping line, haulier, forwarder, inspection body, clearing agent, product brand or client is named as a counterparty, and no presence, office, agency or shipping history in the Kingdom is claimed. It states no position on whether bitumen is or is not currently within the scope of any conformity assessment programme, and it names no currently appointed conformity assessment body, for reasons set out at length in the conformity section. It quotes no Saudi national standard designation for paving bitumen, because the requirement that binds a shipment is the clause the tender incorporates. And nothing here is legal, customs, regulatory, insurance or compliance advice; a buyer trading into the Kingdom must take independent advice covering the goods, the parties, the customs territory and the payment mechanism.

Port structure

The Red Sea gateways, the Gulf gateways, and the inland dry ports behind them

Saudi Arabia’s commercial ports are administered under the Saudi Ports Authority, and they fall into two groups that do not substitute for each other. The Red Sea group is reached from the north through the Suez Canal or from the south through the Bab el-Mandeb strait, and it faces the western and north-western regions. The Gulf group is reached through the Strait of Hormuz and the Gulf of Oman, and it faces the Eastern Province and, by the shortest inland haul in the country, Riyadh. Behind both sits an inland clearance layer. This table is a map, not a timetable: it states nothing about whether any facility is open, what it handles, what it can discharge or what it can store. Those are questions for a freight forwarder in writing before a delivery term is agreed.

Saudi Arabian sea gateways and inland clearance points by coast, with the hinterland each naturally serves and the planning point each raises for a bitumen consignment.
Gateway	Coast and position	Maritime approach	Hinterland it naturally serves	What a bitumen planner should note
Jeddah Islamic Port	Red Sea, at Jeddah on the central western coast	Red Sea, entered from the north through the Suez Canal or from the south through the Bab el-Mandeb strait	Jeddah, Makkah, Taif and the central western region; Madinah by road; and, at the cost of a very long inland haul, Riyadh	The Kingdom’s principal Red Sea container gateway and the default assumption on most western-region enquiries. Two cautions. First, a box discharged here for a Riyadh project has roughly 950 km of trans-peninsular highway in front of it, which for a low value density cargo is not a delivery charge but a major cost line. Second, heated tankage, drum-handling equipment, covered storage and the ability to receive a particular packing are contracted commercial arrangements with individual terminal operators. They can never be inferred from a port’s name, size or reputation.
King Abdullah Port	Red Sea, at King Abdullah Economic City near Rabigh, north of Jeddah	Same Red Sea approaches	The Rabigh and northern Jeddah axis, and the road to Madinah	A purpose-built container port developed as part of an economic city rather than a historic harbour grown outward. Relevant to a western-region buyer as a genuine alternative discharge point to Jeddah, with a different road position relative to Madinah and the north. Which services call, what is handled and what can be stored are forwarder questions, and nothing here asserts any of them.
Yanbu: the commercial port and the industrial port	Red Sea, at Yanbu on the north-western coast	Same Red Sea approaches	Madinah and its region, the Yanbu industrial city, and the north-western coastal belt	Yanbu is one of the two industrial cities administered by the Royal Commission for Jubail and Yanbu, and it carries both commercial and industrial port facilities. For a Madinah or north-western project it is closer than Jeddah by road. Industrial pavement and heavy hardstanding inside an industrial city is a different structural design case from a highway, and it is one of the places where a modified binder or a high performance grade is most likely to be specified.
Duba	Northern Red Sea coast, in the Tabuk region	Same Red Sea approaches, from the north	The Tabuk region and the far north-west of the Kingdom	Geographically the closest sea gateway to the far north-west. The coast at Duba is itself mild in winter, as the whole Red Sea shore is; what is different is the hinterland behind it. Tabuk sits inland at roughly 770 m and the northern belt beyond it is the coldest inhabited part of the Kingdom, so a cargo landing here for an inland site may need a different binder from a cargo landing at Jeddah for a coastal one. Whether the facility takes containerised or packed cargo of this description is a forwarder question.
Jazan	Southern Red Sea coast, at Jizan	Red Sea, from the south through the Bab el-Mandeb strait, or from the north through the Suez Canal	Jizan, the Tihama coastal plain, and the road up the escarpment to Abha and the Asir highlands	The southern gateway, and the one with the most climatically divided hinterland in the country. The Tihama plain immediately behind it is among the hottest and most humid ground in the Kingdom; the Asir highlands a short distance inland and roughly two kilometres higher are the coolest. A single grade cannot serve both, and a cargo landed here has to be matched to the altitude of the site, not to the port.
King Abdulaziz Port, Dammam	Gulf coast, at Dammam in the Eastern Province	The Gulf, entered through the Strait of Hormuz from the Gulf of Oman	Dammam, Dhahran, Al Khobar, Al Ahsa and the wider Eastern Province, and Riyadh by the shortest inland haul from any Saudi coast	The natural gateway for the interior. Commonly cited road distance from Dammam to Riyadh is roughly 400 km, against roughly 950 km from Jeddah, and there is a rail connection inland to the Riyadh dry port. For a central-region project this is usually the coast to be comparing against, and an offer built on a Red Sea discharge for a Riyadh site should say plainly that it is doing so.
Jubail: the commercial port and the industrial port	Gulf coast, at Jubail north of Dammam	Same Gulf approach	The Jubail industrial city and the northern Eastern Province	The second of the two industrial cities under the Royal Commission for Jubail and Yanbu. As at Yanbu, the pavement here includes heavy industrial hardstanding, port and plant access roads and slow, heavily loaded traffic, which is precisely the loading case that argues for a modified binder or a raised high-temperature performance grade rather than for a harder straight-run grade alone.
Ras Al Khair	Gulf coast, north of Jubail	Same Gulf approach	The mining, minerals and heavy-industry area developed around it	Developed as an industrial and bulk gateway rather than as a general container port, which is a fact about how it was built and not a statement about what it is doing now. Listed for completeness of the map: a buyer working on industrial pavement in that area will encounter it in tender documents. Parcel size and available handling are forwarder questions.
Riyadh dry port and the inland clearance layer	Inland, in the central region; no maritime approach of its own	Reached from the Gulf coast by rail and by road, and from the Red Sea coast by road	Riyadh and the central region	Saudi Arabia operates inland dry port and logistics-zone capacity behind its seaports, and the national railway network connects the Gulf coast to the interior. Two consequences for a bitumen consignment. First, where a container is cleared — at the seaport or inland — changes the cost structure, the dwell behaviour and how quickly the box is emptied and returned. Second, an inland movement is another handling event, and handling events are where drums are dented, seams are stressed and counts are disputed. Ask the forwarder which clearance route they can actually execute for this commodity.
The national rail network	Inland, linking the Gulf coast and the interior; a Red Sea link has long been proposed	Not applicable	The central region from the Gulf coast	One useful piece of infrastructure detail: the Saudi network is built to standard gauge, 1,435 mm, so unlike the corridor markets where two incompatible gauges meet, there is no break of gauge to design around inside the Kingdom. A rail link between the Red Sea coast and the interior, commonly discussed as a land bridge across the peninsula, has been the subject of long-running proposals; this page states nothing about whether any of it is built, operating or carrying freight. If rail interests you, ask a forwarder what they can execute and price it against road, transfer by transfer.
The land crossings	The frontiers with Jordan in the north-west, Iraq and Kuwait in the north-east, Bahrain by causeway, and Qatar, the UAE and Oman in the east and south-east	Not applicable	Varies entirely with the crossing	Saudi Arabia has land frontiers on several sides, with crossings including Al Haditha and Halat Ammar facing Jordan, Al Khafji and Al Ruqai facing Kuwait, the King Fahd Causeway to Bahrain, Salwa facing Qatar and Al Batha facing the UAE. They are listed for completeness of the map, because a buyer sourcing from another direction will meet them. Nothing here states that any of them is open to commercial freight of this description, and an overland movement changes the transport document, the Incoterms rule, the insurance and the unit of packing in the ways set out further down this page.

Three cautions belong with this table. First, it describes geography, not availability. Whether any gateway above is open, whether it handles this commodity, whether heated tankage or covered storage exists for your parcel and whether a service calls on your date are operating questions that change and must be confirmed in writing with a freight forwarder before a contract is signed. Second, no draught, throughput, capacity or berth figure is stated anywhere on this page, and none should be inferred from the descriptions above. Third, and commercially the most important: the two coasts are two markets. A quotation into Saudi Arabia that does not say which coast it is built on is not a comparable quotation, because the inland leg it implies can differ by several hundred kilometres. Petroleum bitumen falls under HS heading 2713.20; the full national subheading and any duty or tax treatment must be confirmed with a licensed customs broker in the Kingdom, and no rates of any kind are stated here.

Routing, delivery term and packing economics

Why the coast you land on is a bigger decision than the port you land at

In a compact market the routing question is trivial and the price question is everything. Saudi Arabia is not a compact market. The peninsula is wide, the population is clustered at its edges and in its centre, and the binder has to cross that width by road. Settle the routing first, because it changes the delivery term, the packing unit and a meaningful share of the landed cost.

The arithmetic that makes this a routing question first

Bitumen is heavy and low in value density. A tonne of paving grade binder is worth a small fraction of a tonne of most cargo that travels in a container and weighs exactly the same, so freight is a large share of landed cost rather than a rounding error. Commonly cited road distances, given for orientation only, put Jeddah to Riyadh at roughly 950 km and Dammam to Riyadh at roughly 400 km, with the full crossing from the Red Sea coast to the Gulf coast longer than either. The trans-peninsular axis is the highway commonly signed as Route 40, running from Jeddah through Makkah and Riyadh to the Eastern Province; the Red Sea coastal road runs north and south as Route 5; and the western inland axis linking the south-west, Taif, Madinah and Tabuk is commonly signed as Route 15.

Set those numbers against the cargo and the conclusion is unavoidable. For a Riyadh project, choosing the Red Sea coast over the Gulf coast adds several hundred kilometres of road haul to every tonne. That is not a delivery detail. It is a decision that can move an offer from competitive to uncompetitive before a single technical argument has been had. The first question on a Saudi enquiry is therefore the delivery town, and the second is which coast serves it. An enquiry that says Saudi Arabia and a tonnage cannot be priced properly, only guessed at.

The wrong-coast error, and how it happens

It rarely happens through ignorance of the map. It happens through habit. A trader who has shipped into the region before has a Red Sea routing they know, or a Gulf routing they know, and they quote it. The buyer, who may be a procurement office rather than a site engineer, accepts a landed price at a named port without converting it into a delivered cost at the site. The inland haul then appears later as somebody else’s problem, and it is usually the buyer’s.

The defence is procedural and it costs nothing. State on the offer which coast and which port the price is built on, state that the inland leg beyond that point is excluded, and say approximately how far that leg is. A buyer comparing two offers can then compare them. A buyer who cannot see the assumption will compare two numbers that are not measuring the same journey.

Road, rail and the inland clearance decision

Three points are worth a buyer knowing before the forwarder conversation.

The road legs are long and hot. A trans-peninsular haul in summer is many hours of running in extreme ambient temperature. For packed cargo that is a storage-in-transit question as much as a transport question, and it is one reason the packing section of this page is not a formality. For a heated tanker it is the opposite problem: a long haul is where temperature is either maintained at a cost or lost at a cost.
The national railway is standard gauge, 1,435 mm, and connects the Gulf coast to the interior, so there is no break of gauge to design around of the kind that dominates corridor markets elsewhere. Whether a rail movement is available for this commodity, in your packing, on your date, is a forwarder question and this page asserts nothing about it. A long-proposed rail link across the peninsula to the Red Sea coast is a proposal, and no shipment plan should rest on it.
Where the container is cleared changes the economics. Clearing at the seaport and clearing at an inland dry port are different processes with different charges, different dwell behaviour and different consequences for how quickly a box is emptied and returned. Ask which route the forwarder can actually execute, and ask what it does to the free time on the container.

Container detention, which is a real cost line on an inland Saudi delivery

On a delivery near the port the box is emptied quickly and returned. On a delivery to Riyadh, Qassim, Hail or the south-west, the box travels inland with the cargo and has to come back, and the round trip is not measured in hours. Shipping lines allow a contractually agreed period of free time and charge detention beyond it; the free period and the charge are commercial terms between the buyer and the line, and no figures are stated on this page. Many inland buyers therefore strip the container at the port or at an inland depot and move drums onward on flatbed vehicles instead of sending the box up-country. That decision has to be made before the cargo is booked, because it changes the packing plan, the handling count and the insurance arrangement. Ask the question at enquiry stage rather than discovering it on an invoice.

The delivery term has to match the leg, and it has to name a place

Under Incoterms 2020, FAS, FOB, CFR and CIF are rules for sea and inland waterway transport. They are built around a vessel and a port, and they have coherent meaning for a parcel discharging at Jeddah or Dammam. They have no coherent meaning for a truck arriving at a plant outside Riyadh. The rules that work for any mode of transport are FCA, CPT, CIP, DAP, DPU and DDP, and every one of them names a place.

Three errors recur on Saudi business:

Quoting CFR or CIF against an inland project and letting it be read as a delivered price. For a Jeddah or Dammam site a port price is close to a delivered price. For a Riyadh, Qassim or Abha site it is not, and the difference is hundreds of kilometres of road. Label the offer for what it is.
Naming a country instead of a place. DAP Saudi Arabia is not a delivery term. DAP followed by a named city, plant or project site is. The named place must also settle who bears the cost of a vehicle standing and waiting, because on a land leg the truck and driver are idle at somebody’s expense.
Agreeing DDP casually. DDP puts import clearance and charges on the seller, in a jurisdiction where the seller may not be able to act as importer of record and where a conformity requirement may attach to the import. It is a much heavier undertaking than it looks on a term sheet, and it should never be agreed before the conformity question in the section below has been answered in writing.

Packing arithmetic, and then the vehicle

Site standard loading figures, which apply to the sea leg and to any container movement inland, are as follows. New steel drums of 150 kg net give 80 drums and 12 MT per 20 ft FCL. Drums of 180 kg net give 80 drums and 14.4 MT. Drums of 185 kg net give 80 drums and 14.8 MT. Jumbo or poly bags of 1 MT give 20 bags and 20 MT. The 20 ft box is the unit because a cargo of this density reaches its weight limit long before it fills a larger container.

Use those figures to fix the drum count, the packing cost per tonne and the number of packages on the transport document. Then stop. Container arithmetic does not transfer to a road vehicle. What a truck may lawfully carry on a Saudi highway is set by the axle-load and gross-weight regime in force and by the route, and no payload figure appears on this page because it belongs to the carrier through the forwarder. The correct sequence is: fix the packing with the container figures, ask the forwarder how that tonnage converts into vehicles on your specific axis, and price the handovers as well as the kilometres.

Bulk against drums in this specific market

Saudi Arabia is unusual on this site in that a functioning domestic bulk distribution system exists, so the honest framing is not the corridor framing of drums versus nothing. It is a genuine comparison, and it turns on three things.

What the receiving site has. Bulk is only useful if the receiver has heated tankage of adequate capacity, a compatible discharge connection, a pump and the ability to take the whole load promptly. A fixed asphalt plant on the edge of a major city usually has all of that. A mobile plant on a rural or desert project frequently has none of it, and no freight quotation changes that.
Whether the parcel is an import at all. An imported bulk parcel requires a receiving terminal arrangement with heated storage. That is a contracted commercial arrangement with a terminal operator and it can never be inferred from a port’s name or from the existence of oil handling at that port. Confirm what a facility can actually do for your product and your packing, in writing, before a parcel is fixed. Nothing on this page states that any Saudi facility handles bitumen.
What the material is. A polymer modified binder in bulk wants controlled heating and agitation to stay homogeneous. That is a poor fit for a long hot road haul with standing time in it, so on an inland Saudi leg modified product is usually a stronger argument for drums than for tankers.

Drums remain the sound default for an imported consignment going anywhere other than a large, permanently equipped installation close to the coast. A drum needs no heated storage, can be handled without a terminal crane, can sit on a site through a shutdown, can be heated one unit at a time, allows staged call-off, and fails locally: a damaged drum costs one drum out of eighty, whereas a compromised bulk load costs the consignment. What a drum does not do is survive the Saudi sun without a storage plan, and that is dealt with in its own section below.

One regulatory line to settle before a tanker is booked

Where bitumen is offered for carriage at elevated temperature, above 100 °C, it falls to be classified as UN 3257, elevated temperature liquid, n.o.s., Class 9 under the UN model regulations, and packed bitumen moving at ambient temperature is treated differently. Whether that applies to your movement, and what marking, documentation, equipment and driver qualification follow from it, is a question for the carrier and the forwarder and it should be settled before a vehicle or a parcel is booked rather than after.

Climate and season

Hot and humid on the coasts, hot and swinging in the interior, and cold at the edges

This is the section that decides the grade, so it is worth reading before agreeing one. The starting point is a distinction most enquiries skip: air temperature is not pavement temperature. A dark asphalt surface under direct solar exposure runs substantially hotter than the air above it, and it is the pavement that the binder actually experiences. That is why penetration — measured with a needle at 25 °C — is such a poor proxy in this country: it describes the binder in a condition a Saudi summer pavement does not see for months at a time, while the failure being designed against is rutting at a temperature far above it. The second point is that the Kingdom does not have one summer. The coasts are humid and never cool down at night; the interior is dry and cools a long way every night; the north freezes in winter; and the south-western highlands are mild in summer and cold in winter. Read the zone before the grade.

Saudi climate zones, their summer and winter character, and the binder, packing and season consequence each one carries.
Zone	Where it is and how high	Summer character	Winter and night character	What it means for binder, packing and season
The central Red Sea coast	Jeddah, Rabigh and the central western coastal strip, at or near sea level	Extreme and very long, with high humidity on top of the heat. Solar radiation is intense and the coastal strip has almost no relief from it	Mild. Frost is unknown, rainfall is very low and episodic, and — the point that matters — summer night minima stay high, so the pavement does not cool between days	The most severe version of the rutting case available anywhere on this site, because the binder is held at high temperature for long unbroken periods rather than cycled up and down. The low-temperature end of the specification is simply not a design constraint here. Two further consequences: humidity makes moisture damage in the mix a live durability question that is answered in the mix design and not in the binder grade, and salt-laden humid air is the most aggressive packed-goods storage environment in the Kingdom.
The southern Red Sea coast and the Tihama plain	Jizan and the coastal plain running south, at or near sea level	The most humid conditions in the country, combined with severe heat	Mild, with more rainfall than the northern coast, influenced by the summer rains that fall on the escarpment behind it	As the central coast, plus a genuine water problem. Rainfall and runoff off the escarpment make drainage design and moisture damage the durability questions, and they bound the working window in a way the dry coast does not. Note the trap in this region: the highlands are a short distance inland and roughly two kilometres higher, so a single grade specified for a Jizan-landed cargo can be wrong before the truck has finished climbing.
The Gulf coast	Dammam, Dhahran, Al Khobar, Jubail, Ras Al Khair and Al Ahsa, at or near sea level	Extreme heat with very high humidity and high dew points in the late summer, and long periods with no meaningful cooling	Cooler than the Red Sea coast, and genuinely cool at night in midwinter. Northerly shamal winds bring dust and a marked drop in temperature	The rutting case dominates, and the industrial and port pavement here — hardstanding, plant access, slow and heavily loaded traffic — is exactly the loading condition that argues for modification or a raised high-temperature performance grade rather than simply a harder straight-run grade. Unlike the Red Sea coast, the winter is real enough that an extremely hard binder is not automatically free of risk, so check the low-temperature end rather than assuming it away. Salt-laden humid air attacks drum seams and closures here as it does on the west coast.
The central interior	Riyadh at roughly 600 m, with the Qassim and Hail regions to its north-west	Extreme, dry and long, with intense solar radiation and very low humidity	Genuinely cool to cold at night through the winter, with a wide day-to-night swing all year and frost recorded in the colder years	This is the zone the brief for a Saudi specification most often gets wrong. The high-temperature end still dominates, so a hard grade or a high performance grade is right — but the diurnal swing means the binder cycles a long way every twenty-four hours, which is a thermal fatigue consideration as well as a rutting one, and the winter nights are cold enough that the low-temperature grade is a question to be asked rather than a box to be ignored. Dust is a plant and mix-quality problem, and drums stored uncovered here deteriorate faster than a buyer expects.
The northern interior and the north-west	Al Jouf and Sakaka, Arar and Turaif on the northern frontier, and Tabuk at roughly 770 m	Hot and dry, but shorter and less extreme than the centre and the coasts	The coldest inhabited part of the Kingdom. Genuine frost, sub-zero nights and occasional snow in the highest and most northerly districts	Here the specification argument genuinely inverts. A binder chosen only to survive a Jeddah August is being asked to spend winter nights near or below freezing, and every step down in penetration that buys rut resistance buys it at the cost of thermal and fatigue cracking. For a project in this belt, ask for a low-temperature line on the certificate — a Fraass breaking point, or a bending beam rheometer requirement — because no standard export sheet carries one by default.
The south-western highlands	Taif at roughly 1,900 m, Abha at roughly 2,200 m with Khamis Mushait a little lower, and the Asir escarpment rising to the highest ground in the Kingdom, commonly cited at around 3,000 m	Mild by Saudi standards, and the one part of the country with meaningful summer rainfall, driven by moist air lifted over the escarpment	Cool to cold, with frost at the highest ground and a large diurnal range throughout the year	The clearest exception to every generalisation about Saudi binder. Pavement temperatures here are far below coastal values, the rutting argument weakens sharply, and thermal cycling and moisture become the governing problems. A hard grade specified nationally for the sake of the coast is a poor fit for an Abha wearing course. The season is also bounded by rain rather than by heat, and the escarpment roads are a steep-gradient, slow-traffic loading case in their own right.
The interior deserts and the Rub al Khali	The great sand seas of the south and east, and the Nafud in the north	The most extreme heat in the country, with intense radiation and no shade or moisture to moderate it	Clear cold nights, and a very wide diurnal range	Extreme pavement temperature combined with extreme cycling, on projects that are also the hardest to resupply. Material tends to be pre-positioned in quantity rather than called off, water for construction is scarce, and the packing has to store well in the open for longer than anyone would choose. This is the environment in which the drum-storage problem set out below stops being theoretical.
Dust, the shamal and blowing sand	Country-wide, with the north and east most affected by the seasonal northerly winds	Frequent dust events, reduced visibility and sand movement across the network	The same, with the winter shamal often the strongest	Not a binder question but a project question that touches every part of a consignment. Dust contaminates aggregate stockpiles and degrades mix quality; it works into drum closures and stored packaging; it interrupts haulage and delays site work; and sand encroachment is a maintenance load on desert highways in its own right. Allow for it in the delivery schedule rather than treating it as force majeure.

Four planning consequences follow. First, establish the town and its altitude before you agree a grade. Saudi Arabia spans a rutting-dominated case on both coasts and in the deserts, a rutting-dominated but thermally cycling case in the central interior, and a cracking-and-moisture case in the north and in the south-western highlands. No single grade serves all four, and a supplier offering a national recommendation has not asked where the site is. Second, the season is inverted relative to a temperate market: winter is the comfortable working period across most of the Kingdom, and summer is the constrained one. The constraint is not that the mat cools too fast — in this climate the opposite is true, and a mat that stays hot and tender for a long time is its own compaction control problem — but that working conditions in the open in July and August are severe. Saudi Arabia operates a recurring summer restriction on outdoor work in the middle of the day, administered by the ministry responsible for human resources; it is announced with its dates and hours for each summer, and both must be confirmed for the year in question rather than assumed. Night paving is common practice in this region for exactly that reason, and it changes the delivery and call-off pattern a supplier has to support. Third, pavement temperature, not air temperature, is the design input, which is why a performance grade derived from site temperature statistics tells you more about the requirement than a penetration number does. Fourth, the packing is exposed to the climate too, and on this market that is not a footnote — see the packing section below.

Specification practice

How a Saudi tender names its binder, and what a high PG grade is really telling you

Two specification systems are in live use on this market at the same time, and they are not translations of each other. Penetration grading is the older and still the most commonly quoted idiom in the export trade. Performance grading is the system that the climate argument above actually points to, and it appears on major and internationally designed work. An offer that assumes one and meets the other is the most common technical failure on Saudi business.

Who writes the clause, and why there is no single national answer

Saudi road procurement is not run by one body. The ministry responsible for transport and logistic services and the national roads authority set the direction for the inter-regional and trunk network; the municipal authorities of the major cities, the amanat, run urban arterial and resurfacing programmes with their own documents; the Royal Commission for Jubail and Yanbu governs construction inside the industrial cities and has its own engineering practice; large industrial and energy clients apply their own company engineering standards to pavement on their sites; and the major development projects are designed and supervised by international engineering consultants who bring the specification traditions they work in. The practical result is that a municipal resurfacing contract, an inter-regional highway package, an industrial-city hardstanding job and a consultant-designed development project can each carry a different binder clause, a different set of cited test methods and a different view on modified binder.

Why no Saudi standard designation appears on this page

Saudi Arabia has a national standards body, the Saudi Standards, Metrology and Quality Organization, commonly abbreviated SASO, which develops and issues Saudi standards, operates the national metrology function and issues technical regulations. At the regional level the GCC Standardization Organization, commonly abbreviated GSO, develops Gulf standards which member states adopt into their national catalogues, which is why a Gulf tender may cite a designation that is regional rather than purely national.

This page quotes no Saudi or Gulf standard designation for paving bitumen. The reason is the same as on every market page here, and it is worth stating plainly rather than apologising for. Specification practice across those several procuring bodies is not uniform enough to be reduced to one reference, designations and editions change, and a number quoted from memory into a compliance box on an offer form is a false compliance claim sitting inside a contract. An invented national standard number is the single worst thing a supplier page can print, because it is precise enough for a buyer to rely on and wrong often enough to ruin a shipment. If an enquiry form asks which Saudi standard the cargo complies with, the honest and correct answer is that the binding requirement is the one the tender document incorporates, and that you will quote against that clause once you have seen it. Ask for the clause. It is a normal request and a serious buyer will send it.

The penetration idiom, and the notation that causes correspondence

Where a Saudi clause is written in the penetration idiom, the grade is named by a band measured with the needle test at 25 °C, and the test methods are cited as ASTM, AASHTO or EN designations. Three points of notation save arguments:

AASHTO M20 writes penetration grades with a hyphen — 40-50, 60-70, 85-100 — while the export trade writes 40/50 and 60/70 with a slash. They are the same bands measured by the same test. A clause naming grade 40-50 is not naming something different from what an exporter calls 40/50.
ASTM D946 contains no grade called 30-40. Its penetration grades run 40-50, 60-70, 85-100, 120-150 and 200-300. So a Saudi clause asking for 30/40 — and in a climate this hot, some do — is asking for something that has to be certified against a different table. EN 12591 names a band 30/45, which is not the same window: a batch at 43 dmm satisfies EN 12591 30/45 and fails a literal 30/40 outright. Settle in writing which requirement table the clause intends before the batch is certified, because the flash point limit, the solubility limit, the ductility requirement and the ageing criterion all live in that table rather than in the grade name.
ASTM D946 grade 60-70 and EN 12591 band 50/70 are not synonyms either. The European band is twice as wide and reaches lower. Every 60/70 batch sits inside 50/70; the converse is false, because a binder correctly supplied as 50/70 may measure anywhere down to 50 dmm and would fail a 60/70 requirement. Read the direction of that argument carefully before offering one against the other.

The band is not a point, and in this climate that is a performance variable

Two cargoes can both be genuine 60/70 and behave differently on a Saudi pavement. One measures 61 dmm with a softening point near 56 °C; the other measures 69 dmm with a softening point near 49 °C. Both are in grade. Both pass a conformity check against the band. On a Jeddah or Dammam wearing course in August they are not the same material, and the softer one is carrying materially less rut resistance into a design case that is already at the limit of what an unmodified binder can do. The practical responses, in order of usefulness:

Require the measured value, not the band, on the Certificate of Analysis. A certificate that reprints the specification range every time tells you nothing about the batch you are buying.
Agree a narrower contractual window in writing. If the project needs the harder half of 60/70, say so in the contract as a specific penetration and softening point range for this shipment. The grade name does not change and the tender is still satisfied; what changes is that you have a contractual right to the material you actually need.
Read softening point as hard as you read penetration. Ring and ball to ASTM D36 is the line that speaks most directly to behaviour at service temperature, and it is the line most often skimmed on an export offer. In a country where a drum can sit in sun that approaches the softening point of its own contents, that line is not academic.
Consider stepping to a harder grade rather than policing the top of a softer one, where the tender permits it. A hard grade properly specified is a cleaner answer than a soft grade tightly supervised.

Where the climate argument actually leads: performance grading

The reason performance grading matters more here than on most markets is that it is the only system that takes the climate as its input. A performance grade is written as two numbers — PG 64-10, PG 70-10, PG 76-10 and so on — where the first is the high pavement temperature the binder is graded to resist and the second is the low pavement temperature it is graded to survive. Those numbers are derived from pavement temperature statistics at the site, not from a needle test at 25 °C, which is exactly the translation a Saudi specification needs.

Two structural points follow directly from the climate table above, and they are the Saudi shape of the problem:

The high-temperature designation is demanding almost everywhere. A market with sustained extreme pavement temperature and, on the coasts, no overnight recovery, produces a high-temperature requirement at the top of the ordinary range before any traffic adjustment is applied at all.
The low-temperature designation is not uniformly trivial. On the coasts it genuinely is close to irrelevant. In the central interior, the northern belt and the highlands it is not, and a binder whose low-temperature grade was never measured is a binder whose cracking risk was never assessed.

Grade bumping, and why traffic changes the answer

Superpave practice does not stop at the climate. Under AASHTO M323, the high-temperature grade derived from the climate is adjusted upward where the loading is slow or standing, because a binder that is adequate under free-flowing traffic is not adequate under a vehicle that is barely moving or not moving at all. That is why signalised intersections, roundabout approaches, bus stops and bus lanes, toll and weighbridge approaches, truck standing areas, port and industrial hardstanding, plant yards and steep climbing lanes are the locations where rutting appears first. Under the newer AASHTO M332 framework the same idea is expressed differently: instead of bumping the grade, the binder is graded at the climatic high temperature and then assigned a traffic designation letter — S for standard, H for heavy, V for very heavy and E for extremely heavy — each with its own limit on non-recoverable creep compliance. Establish which of the two systems the tender is written in, because the answer changes what the certificate has to show.

What a high PG grade implies about how the binder was made

This is the question a Saudi buyer should ask and very rarely does. A performance grade is a statement of measured behaviour; it is not a statement of composition. There are two quite different ways to arrive at a high high-temperature grade, and they do not produce the same material.

A stiff base binder. A harder, stiffer straight-run binder will meet a higher high-temperature requirement simply by being stiffer. It gets there honestly and cheaply. What it does not do is improve the low-temperature end — on the contrary, stiffening the binder generally pushes the low-temperature grade in the wrong direction. So a stiff-base route buys rut resistance and pays for it in cracking resistance.
Polymer modification. An elastomeric modifier raises the high-temperature end while doing much less damage, and sometimes doing good, at the low-temperature end, and it adds elastic recovery that an unmodified binder does not have. It costs more, it needs controlled handling, and it introduces storage stability as a property that has to be certified.

The diagnostic a buyer can apply from the certificate is the useful temperature interval: the arithmetic span between the high and low grade numbers. A binder graded PG 76-10 spans 86 °C, which is comfortably within reach of a stiff straight-run binder from a suitable crude. A binder graded PG 76-22 spans 98 °C, and a span of that width is very difficult to achieve without modification. So the shape of the grade tells you something the word on the drum does not. Two further checks make it concrete:

The MSCR percent recovery result. Under AASHTO M332 the multiple stress creep recovery test produces both a non-recoverable creep compliance and a percent recovery, and the standard sets a minimum recovery expressed as a function of the compliance. Elastomeric modification shows up in that relationship; a stiff unmodified binder does not produce the recovery. This is the single most direct evidence on the certificate of whether a polymer is present and doing work.
Elastic recovery by ductilometer to ASTM D6084, and storage stability of the modified binder to ASTM D7173 or EN 13399. A certificate that says polymer modified and carries neither is telling you a marketing fact rather than a technical one.

The practical instruction is short. If the tender specifies a high performance grade, ask on which basis it is to be met, and require the evidence. If a stiff base binder is acceptable, say so and check the low-temperature consequence against the site’s climate zone. If modification is required, require the recovery and stability data and treat the absence of it as a finding rather than an oversight.

The five questions to ask about any Saudi binder clause

Which document, and which edition? Specifications assembled from older templates carry grades, limits and cited standards that differ from current published texts, and some cite standards that have since been withdrawn or renumbered. Take the acceptance limits from the text the tender incorporates, not from a refinery data sheet and not from memory.
Penetration or performance grade, and if performance, M320 or M332? These are different measuring systems and a grade in one cannot be inferred from a grade in another. A penetration certificate cannot evidence a performance grade, and no amount of correlation table changes that.
Which ageing procedure is controlled? The thin-film oven test (ASTM D1754) and the rolling thin-film oven test (ASTM D2872, AASHTO T240, and in the European system EN 12607-1) are different exposures and their results are not interchangeable. Middle East export certificates carry TFOT by default. If the clause controls RTFOT — and every performance-graded clause does — add that test to the schedule before the batch is certified, not after the cargo has sailed.
Is there a low-temperature requirement, and does the site need one even if the clause omits it? On the coasts, no. In the central interior, the northern belt and the south-western highlands, yes. Fraass breaking point to EN 12593, or a bending beam rheometer requirement under AASHTO M320, has to be agreed in writing because no standard export sheet carries one.
Are prime and tack coat products in the same package, and is a modified binder required? Cutbacks under ASTM D2027 and emulsions under ASTM D977 or ASTM D2397 are separate products with their own acceptance tables, and a paving-grade certificate evidences nothing whatever for them.

What a usable Certificate of Analysis looks like for this market

Batch or lot identification tying the certificate to the drums or the parcel actually loaded — not a typical-values sheet reissued for every consignment.
Penetration at 25 °C and softening point as measured values, each with the ASTM or EN designation printed beside the result, and each read against any narrower contractual window agreed for the shipment.
Ductility, flash point, solubility, specific gravity and water content, each with its method.
The ageing result in the form the tender asks for, labelled with the procedure actually run rather than described generically as loss on heating.
Where a performance grade is specified, the full grading data: dynamic shear on unaged and RTFO-aged binder, pressure ageing vessel conditioning, bending beam rheometer results on the aged residue, rotational viscosity, and where M332 applies, the MSCR compliance and recovery results at the specified traffic level.
For an interior, northern or highland site, an agreed low-temperature line, because no standard export sheet carries one.
Where a modified binder is supplied, elastic recovery, storage stability and the modification type — not merely the word polymer.
Nothing about adhesion. Affinity between binder and aggregate cannot be certified from a binder sample alone; it is a mix-level question, tested with the actual project aggregate under EN 12697-11 or as moisture-induced damage on the compacted mix under AASHTO T283. Any supplier claiming moisture performance on the strength of a binder certificate is overstating what the document can carry.

Inspect at loading, because there is no reverse gear inland

Appoint an internationally recognised inspection company to attend loading, sample across the consignment to ASTM D140, and seal retained samples held by both parties. Record drum count, drum condition and seal numbers at loading and at each handover. Solubility in trichloroethylene to ASTM D2042 is the line that shows whether the material is bitumen or bitumen extended with mineral matter; if a certificate omits solubility, treat that as a finding rather than an oversight. The Saudi-specific reason to insist is distance: a rejected parcel at Jeddah or Dammam is a cargo sitting in a port with a shipping document behind it, whereas a rejected parcel that has been hauled several hundred kilometres inland to a site in the Qassim or the Asir is a problem with no realistic reverse gear. The inspection you did not pay for at the loading point is the argument you cannot win afterwards.

Technical data

Typical export specification for the two penetration grades a Saudi clause usually names

Where a Saudi tender is written in the penetration idiom, the argument sits between 60/70 and the harder 40/50, with 30/40 raised occasionally for the most extreme applications. The two columns below set the harder grade beside the common one so that the line an August pavement actually feels — softening point — can be read across. The figures are the typical export ranges published on regional data sheets, each shown with the test method that produces it. They are stated as typical trade practice and are not attributed to any named producer, and they are not a contractual guarantee. Read them with the note beneath, which sets out the four things a Saudi buyer should do with them.

Typical export specification values for Bitumen 40/50 and Bitumen 60/70, with the test method that produces each line.
Property	Test method	Unit	Bitumen 40/50	Bitumen 60/70
Penetration at 25 °C, 100 g, 5 s	ASTM D5 / EN 1426	dmm (0.1 mm)	40–50	60–70
Softening point, ring and ball	ASTM D36 / EN 1427	°C	52–60	49–56
Ductility at 25 °C, 5 cm/min	ASTM D113	cm	100 min	100 min
Flash point, Cleveland open cup	ASTM D92 / EN ISO 2592	°C	250 min	250 min
Solubility in trichloroethylene	ASTM D2042 / EN 12592	wt %	99.0 min	99.0 min
Specific gravity at 25 °C	ASTM D70 / EN 15326	—	1.01–1.06	1.01–1.06
Loss on heating, 163 °C for 5 h	ASTM D1754 (TFOT)	wt %	0.2 max	0.2 max
Drop in penetration after heating	ASTM D5 on TFOT residue	% of original	20 max	20 max
Spot test	AASHTO T 102 (method withdrawn; carried commercially)	—	Negative	Negative
Water content	ASTM D95	vol %	0.2 max	0.2 max
Viscosity at handling and mixing temperature	ASTM D2170 (kinematic), or rotational viscosity to ASTM D4402 / AASHTO T316	mm²/s, or Pa·s	By written agreement	By written agreement
Breaking point, Fraass — interior, northern and highland sites only	EN 12593	°C	By written agreement	By written agreement

Four points of detail. First, these are typical published export values and not a contractual guarantee. Where a tender cites ASTM D946 or AASHTO M20 directly, the acceptance limits are those printed in the cited standard, and they are not identical to a refinery data sheet: D946 allows a lower minimum flash point of 232 °C for these grades, and it expresses the ageing requirement as a minimum retained penetration after the thin-film oven test rather than as a maximum drop. The two conventions describe the same measurement — retained percentage equals one hundred minus the drop, so a 20 % maximum drop is an 80 % minimum retention — but they are not set at the same level, because D946 states its own retained-penetration minimum grade by grade and those minima are less demanding than the export data sheet convention above. Take the acceptance limit from the cited standard rather than converting the data sheet figure and assuming the standard agrees with it. Second, if the clause says 30/40, stop and settle the designation: ASTM D946 has no grade 30-40, EN 12591 names a band 30/45, and the two windows are not the same, so the acceptance table has to be agreed in writing before certification rather than argued about at delivery. Third, for any Saudi site the two lines to read hardest are penetration and softening point as measured values, not as bands, because the position within the grade is a real performance variable in this climate. Fourth, and specific to this country: nothing in the first ten rows describes low-temperature behaviour, which is exactly the risk a buyer takes on when they choose a hard grade. That is fine for Jeddah and it is not fine for Turaif, Hail or Abha. If the site is in the interior, the north or the highlands, add the Fraass line or a bending beam rheometer requirement and agree the figure in writing before the offer is accepted, because there is no settled house value for it across suppliers. The binding specification for any shipment is the one written into the sales contract and evidenced by the batch Certificate of Analysis.

Performance grading

What a performance-graded clause actually requires, test by test

A performance grade cannot be derived from a penetration certificate, and this table is the reason. Each line below is a requirement written into the performance grading standards themselves — AASHTO M320 for the original system and AASHTO M332 for the multiple stress creep recovery system — rather than a supplier’s typical value. They are shown with the method that produces them and with what each one is actually controlling, because in a climate this hot the difference between the tests that matter and the tests that are formalities is worth understanding before the schedule is written into a contract.

Performance grading requirements under AASHTO M320 and AASHTO M332, the test that produces each, and what each controls.
Property and state of the binder	Test method	Requirement in the standard	Where in the temperature scale it is run	What it controls, and why it matters here
Flash point, original binder	AASHTO T48, Cleveland open cup	230 °C minimum	Ambient laboratory test on unaged binder	Handling and storage safety. It is the one line on a performance grading schedule that is about people rather than pavement, and it sits at a different figure from the 250 °C typically published on penetration-grade export sheets, so check which number your contract is written to.
Rotational viscosity, original binder	AASHTO T316	3 Pa·s maximum	135 °C	Pumpability and mixability: whether the binder can be moved through a plant and coated onto aggregate at a workable temperature. The standard allows this requirement to be set aside where the supplier warrants that the binder can be adequately pumped and mixed at temperatures meeting the applicable safety requirements, which matters for stiff and for heavily modified binders.
Dynamic shear, original binder	AASHTO T315	G*/sin δ not less than 1.00 kPa	At the high-temperature grade, for example 70 °C for a PG 70 binder	Rutting resistance of the binder as delivered. This is the test that defines the first number in the grade, and it is the number the Saudi climate pushes upward.
Mass change after rolling thin-film oven	AASHTO T240	1.00 % maximum, expressed as change either way	163 °C for 85 minutes	Volatile loss during mixing and laying. A binder that loses mass in the oven is a binder that will stiffen in the plant, and in a hot climate that stiffening is added to an ageing process that is already accelerated.
Dynamic shear, rolling thin-film oven residue	AASHTO T315 on AASHTO T240 residue	G*/sin δ not less than 2.20 kPa	At the high-temperature grade	Rutting resistance after short-term ageing, which is the condition the pavement is actually in on its first summer. This is the pairing that makes the high-temperature grade meaningful rather than nominal.
Pressure ageing vessel conditioning	AASHTO R28	20 hours at 2.10 MPa air pressure	Conducted at 90, 100 or 110 °C, with the temperature selected to reflect the climate	Simulation of long-term in-service ageing. The choice of conditioning temperature is itself a climate decision, and it is worth confirming which one the tender expects for a market at this end of the temperature range.
Dynamic shear, pressure ageing vessel residue	AASHTO T315 on AASHTO R28 residue	G* sin δ not more than 5000 kPa	At the intermediate temperature defined by the grade	Fatigue cracking resistance of the aged binder. It is the line most often missing from an export certificate, and it is the one that speaks to how the pavement behaves after several summers rather than after one.
Creep stiffness, bending beam rheometer, on aged residue	AASHTO T313	S not more than 300 MPa and m-value not less than 0.300, both at 60 s	At the low-temperature grade plus 10 °C	Thermal and low-temperature cracking resistance. This is the test that defines the second number in the grade, and it is the half of a performance grade that an exporter is least likely to hold data for. It is also the half that matters in the Saudi interior, the north and the highlands and does not matter on the coasts.
Direct tension, on aged residue	AASHTO T314	1.0 % failure strain minimum	At the same low temperature as the bending beam test	The permitted alternative route where the m-value is satisfied but creep stiffness falls between 300 and 600 MPa. Useful to know it exists, because a binder that narrowly fails on stiffness alone is not automatically out of grade.
Non-recoverable creep compliance, Jnr at 3.2 kPa	AASHTO T350, on rolling thin-film oven residue	Not more than 4.0 for S, 2.0 for H, 1.0 for V and 0.5 for E traffic, in 1/kPa	At the climatic high-temperature grade	The M332 replacement for grade bumping. Instead of raising the grade for slow or standing traffic, the binder is graded at the climate temperature and held to a tighter compliance limit according to the traffic designation — standard, heavy, very heavy or extremely heavy. On Saudi intersections, bus lanes, port hardstanding and industrial yards this is the line that decides the specification.
Difference in non-recoverable creep compliance between stress levels	AASHTO T350	75 % maximum	At the climatic high-temperature grade	Stress sensitivity. A binder whose compliance changes sharply between the low and high stress levels behaves unpredictably under heavy load, which is precisely the load case this market cares about.
Percent recovery in the multiple stress creep recovery test	AASHTO T350, assessed under AASHTO M332	A minimum recovery expressed as a function of the measured compliance	At the climatic high-temperature grade	The elastomeric indicator. This is the most direct evidence on a certificate of whether a high grade was reached by polymer modification or by a stiff base binder, and it is the line to ask for when a supplier says polymer modified without producing data.

Three things to do with this table. First, establish which system the tender is written in before you price anything. M320 and M332 are not two names for the same schedule: one adjusts the grade for traffic and the other adjusts the compliance limit, and a certificate issued against one does not automatically satisfy the other. Second, ask at enquiry stage whether the data exists. The high-temperature half of a performance grade is commonly held; the pressure ageing vessel and bending beam half is commonly not, and it is the half that takes time and equipment to produce. A supplier who agrees to a performance-graded clause without confirming that the low-temperature data can be generated has agreed to something they may not be able to certify. Third, read the grade span as information. The arithmetic interval between the high and low numbers is a real clue to how the binder was made: a span of roughly 86 °C, as in PG 76-10, is within reach of a stiff straight-run binder, while a span approaching 98 °C, as in PG 76-22, is very hard to reach without modification. Confirm the inference with the recovery result rather than resting on it. Nothing in this table is a supplier’s published value: these are the criteria in the standards, and the binding specification for any shipment remains the one written into the sales contract and evidenced by the batch Certificate of Analysis.

Grade selection

Choosing the binder for a Saudi site

Grade choice here is driven by one variable that dominates and two that qualify it: extreme summer pavement temperature almost everywhere, qualified by the diurnal swing and winter cold of the interior and the north, and by the mild highlands in the south-west. Decide which of those governs the site before you decide the grade, and treat these cards as the direction of travel for a conversation with the engineer rather than as a substitute for the tender document.

Bitumen 40/50

The natural answer for both coasts and for most of the interior, where sustained high pavement temperature makes rutting the governing failure mode. Softening point typically 52 to 60 °C against 49 to 56 °C for a 60/70 from the same source, and that gap is what a Jeddah or Dammam August actually feels. Supply it where a tender names it, and raise it as a question where a tender names 60/70 for a hot coastal site without explaining why. Where the site is in the northern belt or the highlands, check the low-temperature consequence before you treat the harder grade as an improvement.

Bitumen 60/70, and where in the band

Still the most commonly quoted grade in the export trade and perfectly serviceable across much of the Kingdom, but a 60/70 at 69 dmm and a 60/70 at 61 dmm are not the same material on a Riyadh or Dammam wearing course. Require measured penetration and softening point on the batch Certificate of Analysis rather than a sheet that reprints the range, and where the design case is tight agree a narrower contractual window in writing. The grade name does not change and the tender is still satisfied; what changes is that you have a right to the half of the band you need.

Bitumen 30/40 and harder, and the designation trap

Raised occasionally for the hottest and most heavily loaded applications, and it comes with a documentation problem before it comes with an engineering one. ASTM D946 contains no grade 30-40; EN 12591 names a band 30/45, which is a different window, and a batch at 43 dmm passes one and fails the other. Settle in writing which requirement table the clause intends before certification. On the engineering side, treat a harder grade as a decision the tender has to justify rather than a general improvement: every step down in penetration trades rut resistance for thermal and fatigue cracking risk, and that trade is a poor one anywhere the site sees cold nights.

Performance-graded binder

The system the Saudi climate argument actually points to, because it takes pavement temperature as its input rather than a needle test at 25 °C. Expect a demanding high-temperature designation almost everywhere, and expect it to be raised further for slow or standing traffic — under AASHTO M323 by bumping the grade, or under AASHTO M332 by tightening the creep compliance limit through the traffic designations S, H, V and E. The half to interrogate at enquiry stage is the low-temperature half: pressure ageing vessel conditioning and bending beam rheometer data take time and equipment, and it is the data an exporter is least likely to already hold.

Polymer modified binder

The realistic answer where the pavement is both hot and heavily loaded, which on this market means a specific and predictable set of locations: signalised intersections and roundabout approaches, bus lanes and stops, truck standing and weighbridge areas, port and industrial hardstanding in the industrial cities, plant yards, and climbing lanes on the escarpment roads. Where a high performance grade is specified, modification is commonly what delivers it rather than a harder straight-run binder — but confirm which, because the two routes have different low-temperature consequences. Require elastic recovery by ASTM D6084 and storage stability by ASTM D7173 or EN 13399, and note the logistics consequence: modified binder in bulk wants controlled heating and agitation to stay homogeneous, which fits a long hot inland haul badly and argues for drums.

Cutback and emulsion in a Saudi summer

Medium-curing cutbacks under ASTM D2027 are the usual prime coat over new granular base; emulsions under ASTM D2397 and ASTM D977 cover tack coats and cold works. Both are squeezed harder here than a paving grade is. A cutback carries solvent, so its flash point and handling regime are nothing like a paving grade’s, and that matters more, not less, when drums stand in the open at a desert site. An emulsion has a finite storage life and dislikes heat: sustained high storage temperature accelerates separation and breaking, so a consignment that spends weeks on a quay or in an uncovered yard is exposed to exactly the conditions that ruin it. Where the leg is long or the storage is open, plan the shelf life explicitly rather than assuming it.

Standards, conformity, customs and documents

SASO, the import conformity mechanism, and the paperwork discipline behind it

This is the section where an undated web page can do the most damage, so it is written to describe mechanisms rather than to state a current position. Read it to understand how the system is built and what it will ask of you. Then get the current answer, in writing and dated, from a licensed customs broker in the Kingdom.

Who the standards body is

Saudi Arabia’s national standards body is the Saudi Standards, Metrology and Quality Organization, commonly abbreviated SASO. Its functions are the ordinary functions of a national standards body: developing and issuing Saudi standards, operating the national metrology and calibration function, issuing technical regulations for products placed on the market and, in common with national standards bodies elsewhere, carrying a role in the conformity assessment arrangements that apply to goods placed on the market. How that responsibility is currently divided, and what it means for any particular product on any particular date, is for a licensed customs broker in the Kingdom to confirm in writing. At the regional level the GCC Standardization Organization, commonly abbreviated GSO, develops Gulf standards that member states adopt into their national catalogues, which is why a tender in this region may cite a designation that is regional rather than purely national. Neither body is a counterparty of ours and nothing in this section describes a relationship with either.

The conformity mechanism, described as a mechanism

Conformity assessment on imports into the Kingdom has been handled electronically rather than on paper, through a product safety arrangement operated on an online platform that has been referred to as Saber. That name is given only so that the shape of the system is recognisable when a broker or a buyer mentions it. Nothing here states that an arrangement in that form is in force on your shipment date, who administers it then, what it covers, which routes it offers, or whether it reaches bitumen at all. Those are questions for a licensed customs broker in the Kingdom, answered in writing and dated, before you contract. What follows describes only how arrangements of this family are normally structured.

The trigger is scope. Systems of this kind apply to products defined by a technical regulation, by product category and by tariff classification, and they typically distinguish between products covered by a specific technical regulation and products that are not, with different evidence required for each. Whether a given product sits inside or outside a given regulation at a given moment is the whole question, and it is the question this page will not answer.
Two certificates, in sequence. The structure normally produces a product certificate of conformity, issued against a product and the standard or regulation it is assessed to and valid for a period, and then a shipment certificate of conformity, issued for the individual consignment against that product certificate. The product certificate is the slow one to obtain; the shipment certificate is the one that has to exist before the goods arrive. Getting the sequence wrong is the standard way a first shipment goes wrong.
Both sides of the transaction have work to do. The importer holds the registration and raises the entry on the platform; the supplier has to produce the technical evidence — test reports against the referenced standard, product identification and description, batch or lot identification, and the commercial documents. Neither party can complete it alone, which is exactly why it has to be settled at contract stage rather than after loading.
The certificate is issued by an accepted conformity assessment body. Which bodies are accepted for which product scopes is set by the administering authority and it changes. This page names none of them, for the same reason it states no scope.
The consequence of getting it wrong is not a warning letter. Where a certificate is required and absent, the usual outcomes are detention of the goods at the port, inspection and testing at the importer’s cost and time, penalties, or refusal of entry. On this market that lands on a cargo that has already completed an ocean voyage.

Why this page does not tell you whether bitumen is in scope

Because the scope of these programmes changes. Technical regulations are issued, amended and replaced; tariff lines are added and removed from product lists; accepted certification bodies are appointed and re-appointed; and the available routes are revised. An undated page asserting that a product is or is not currently in scope, or naming the body currently accepted for a particular product, is worse than useless: it is a statement precise enough for a buyer to plan a shipment on and wrong often enough to ruin one.

Put four questions in writing to a licensed customs broker in the Kingdom before you contract, and put them again if the shipment slips:

Is this product, under this description and this tariff classification, within the scope of a technical regulation or of the conformity platform on my intended shipment date?
If it is, what certificate is required, which route applies, which body can issue it for my country of supply, and what does the supplier have to produce and by when?
Is there a physical marking obligation, and if so, does it have to be applied before the goods are packed?
What evidence will customs expect at the specific port of entry I am using, and does the answer differ between the Red Sea and Gulf entry points?

That last question is not padding. Administrative practice can differ between entry points in any country, and on a market with two seaboards it is worth asking rather than assuming.

Customs, tariff classification and the Gulf dimension

Customs in the Kingdom is administered by the Zakat, Tax and Customs Authority, commonly abbreviated ZATCA, with declarations lodged electronically and trade documentation channelled through the national platforms operated for that purpose. Two structural points matter to a seller. The first is that the import file is opened before the goods arrive, which means the importer needs the commercial documents from the seller earlier than a first-time exporter expects, and late or inconsistent seller documentation stops the buyer from opening the file at all. The second is the Gulf dimension: the Gulf Cooperation Council states operate a customs union with a common customs law and a unified tariff, so the classification question has a regional as well as a national layer to it.

Petroleum bitumen falls under HS heading 2713.20. The full national subheading, and any duty, tax or levy treatment, must be confirmed with a licensed customs broker in the Kingdom. No rates of any kind are stated on this page.

The document set, and the discipline that keeps it moving

The core set on a Saudi import is not exotic, and the failures are almost never exotic either. Expect to provide, and write into the contract rather than assume:

Commercial invoice, with a goods description that matches every other document word for word.
Packing list stating drum type and net weight with drum tare excluded, and the package count that will be checked against the transport document.
Certificate of origin from the issuing chamber of commerce. Whether any legalisation, attestation or electronic equivalent is required, and through which arrangement, changes over time and by document type; confirm the current requirement with the broker rather than relying on how a previous shipment was handled.
Safety data sheet, and where the movement is at elevated temperature, the dangerous goods documentation that follows from UN 3257 Class 9.
Batch-specific Certificate of Analysis with measured values, not a typical-values sheet reissued for every consignment.
Bill of lading for a sea arrival — a negotiable document of title a bank can hold security against. Note that if any part of the movement is overland, the transport document becomes a road consignment note, which is a receipt and evidence of the contract of carriage but not a document of title, and a letter of credit drafted around a marine bill of lading cannot be satisfied by one. Settle the transport document with the bank before the credit is opened.
Any conformity certificate the mechanism above requires, obtained in the sequence that mechanism requires.

The discipline that matters more than any individual document is consistency. Keep the goods description word for word identical across the contract, the credit, the invoice, the packing list, the transport document, the conformity documentation and the customs declaration. A description that drifts between documents is the most common self-inflicted cause of a hold anywhere in the world, and it is entirely avoidable.

Insurance, and the gap after the port

Two points are worth stating carefully. First, a marine cargo policy that ends at the port does not cover an inland leg of several hundred kilometres, and on a Riyadh, Qassim, Hail or Asir delivery that leg is a substantial part of the journey. Inland transit cover has to be arranged deliberately. Carrier liability under a road carriage arrangement is limited and calculated by weight; it is not cargo insurance and it will not make a buyer whole on a full load. Second, the delivery term and the insurance arrangement have to be chosen together rather than in sequence: CIF is the rule under which the seller procures cover, and a buyer who intends to place cover at home should be contracting on CFR or FOB instead. Confirm the position with your insurance broker before the delivery term is agreed, not afterwards.

The order to take the decisions in

Because a Saudi consignment has more moving parts than a single-port import into a compact market, the sequence matters. Take them in this order and no decision invalidates the one before it.

First, establish the actual delivery town and its altitude. Not the country and not the province. Everything else follows from this: the coast, the inland haul, the climate zone, the grade and the packing.
Second, decide which coast the cargo should land on, and say so explicitly on the offer along with what the price does and does not include beyond that point.
Third, take your own legal and compliance advice covering the goods, the parties, the customs territory and the payment mechanism, from advisers accountable for the opinion.
Fourth, put the conformity question to a licensed customs broker in the Kingdom, in writing and dated, early enough that any product-level certificate can actually be obtained before the shipment-level one is needed.
Fifth, settle routing, inland clearance and current operating status with a freight forwarder, in writing, including which gateway and which mode they can execute for this commodity and what it does to container free time.
Sixth, read the tender’s binder clause, establish whether it is penetration or performance graded and which standard’s table it intends, and settle where in the band the batch has to sit.
Seventh, add the lines the export sheet does not carry: a low-temperature requirement for an interior, northern or highland site, the ageing procedure the clause actually controls, and for a modified binder the recovery and storage stability data.
Eighth, choose the Incoterms 2020 rule from the mode and name the place precisely, and settle in the same clause who bears the cost of a vehicle standing and waiting.
Ninth, write the test schedule into the contract and inspect at loading, with sampling to ASTM D140, sealed retained samples held by both parties, and a recorded drum count, drum condition and seal number at every handover.
Tenth, write the storage plan into the delivery arrangement, because on this market what happens to the packing after it lands is a technical question and not a housekeeping one.

Packing for a hot destination

Drums, bags and bulk in the Saudi sun, and the loading figures behind each

Most packing specifications are written against the voyage. On this market the harder test comes after the voyage. A steel drum standing on an open quay or in an unshaded yard in July is not in ambient conditions: it is a dark, closed steel vessel absorbing direct solar radiation for ten or more hours a day in an environment where the air itself is extreme and, on both coasts, does not cool much at night. The number that makes this concrete is on the specification table above. A Bitumen 60/70 has a ring and ball softening point typically in the range 49 to 56 °C. That is not a temperature a Saudi summer struggles to reach at the surface of a sun-exposed steel drum. The packing decision therefore has to be made against the destination environment, not against the container.

Packing formats for a Saudi consignment, the site standard loading figure for each, and what the destination climate does to it.
Format	Site loading figure per 20 ft FCL	What a Saudi summer does to it	The storage and handling rule it creates
New steel drums, 150 kg net	80 drums, 12 MT	The lightest of the standard drum fills, and the one that carries the least head of softened material when the block warms. Solar gain raises the drum contents well above the shaded air temperature, and the block loses stiffness as it approaches the softening point of the grade inside it. Salt-laden humid air on either coast attacks seams and closures faster than a buyer expects	The easiest drum to handle by hand and the format that tolerates a poorly equipped receiving site best. Store under cover, off the ground on dunnage, with closures upward and tight, and keep the dwell short. Where drums must stand outside, shade them; a tarpaulin over a stack is a cheap intervention against an expensive problem.
New steel drums, 180 kg net	80 drums, 14.4 MT	More material per drum and a taller column of it, so a softened block carries more load onto the lower drums in a stack. The commonest visible symptom of a hot stack is drum distortion: bulging, leaning and stack instability rather than an outright failure	Limit stack height in hot storage rather than applying a warehouse rule to a Saudi yard, and inspect stacks after a heat spell rather than only on receipt. The tonnage per container is better than the 150 kg drum, so this is the sensible default where handling equipment exists at the receiving end.
New steel drums, 185 kg net	80 drums, 14.8 MT	As the 180 kg drum, with the highest tonnage per container of the drum formats and correspondingly the least tolerance for hot, badly stacked storage	The best container economics of the drummed options and the least forgiving in a hot yard. Choose it where the receiving site has proper handling equipment and covered storage, and not where drums will stand in the open for an indefinite period.
Jumbo or poly bags, 1 MT net	20 bags, 20 MT	This is the format the Saudi climate punishes hardest, and it deserves a direct answer rather than a diplomatic one. A meltable-bag product depends on the block being solid at ambient temperature. Where the storage temperature approaches the softening point of the grade inside, the block loses shape, the bag slumps, adjacent bags adhere to one another, and a stack that was discrete units on arrival becomes a mass that cannot be separated cleanly	If bags are used on this market at all, use them with a harder grade and a correspondingly higher softening point, store them under cover and never in stacked sun, and plan a short dwell between arrival and use. The container economics are the best available — 20 MT against 14.8 MT for the best drum — and that is a genuine advantage, but it is an advantage that has to be paid for with a covered storage plan. Where covered storage cannot be guaranteed, drums are the safer answer even at the worse loading figure.
Reconditioned drums	Nominally the same figures	Every problem above, plus the one that starts arguments: reconditioned drums are the commonest source of contamination disputes in this trade anywhere in the world, and heat and humidity accelerate the corrosion of an already worked steel shell	Specify new steel drums in the contract in words, not by implication. On a market where the buyer has a domestic alternative and is choosing to import, a contamination dispute is not just a commercial loss but the end of the commercial relationship.
Bulk in a heated road tanker	Not containerised	A long hot inland haul is the one journey where high ambient temperature helps rather than hurts, because the load loses heat more slowly. The problem is at the ends: standing time, discharge time, and whether the receiver can take the whole load promptly	Only appropriate where the receiving site has heated tankage of adequate capacity, a compatible discharge connection, a pump and the ability to take the load in one movement. A modified binder in bulk additionally wants controlled heating and agitation to stay homogeneous, which fits a long haul with standing time badly. Where the movement is above 100 °C, settle the UN 3257 Class 9 documentation and equipment requirements with the carrier before booking.
Bulk parcel by sea into shore tankage	Not containerised	Not a climate question so much as an infrastructure question. It removes packaging cost, drum handling and drum disposal entirely, and it removes the whole storage-in-the-sun problem with them	It requires a contracted receiving arrangement with a terminal that has heated storage for this product. That is a commercial arrangement with an individual operator and it can never be inferred from a port’s name, size or the presence of oil handling there. Nothing on this page states that any Saudi facility handles bitumen in bulk. Confirm in writing before a parcel is fixed.
The 20 ft container itself, standing on a quay	80 drums or 20 bags	A closed steel box in direct sun is a solar oven, and its interior runs well above the shaded air temperature outside it. A container that sits for a long dwell in a Saudi summer subjects its contents to a more severe thermal history than the voyage did, and the contents cannot be inspected while it does so	Treat container dwell at the destination as a technical variable and not merely a demurrage cost. Plan the clearance so that boxes are stripped promptly, ask the forwarder what dwell is realistic at the gateway you are using, and where a long dwell is unavoidable, factor it into the grade and packing decision rather than discovering its effects at the plant.

Four physical points belong with this table, and they are the difference between packing that arrives usable and packing that arrives as an argument. First, the softening point is the number to think with. A grade with a softening point in the range 49 to 56 °C, stored in a dark steel drum in direct Saudi sun, is being asked to spend part of every summer day near the top of its own service range. That does not mean the product is ruined — bitumen is not damaged by being warm — but it does mean the package is under load, and drum distortion, stack instability, leaning stacks and difficulty separating adjacent units are the predictable results. Second, water is the real hazard, not heat. Drums are filled hot and the block shrinks as it cools, leaving a shallow depression in the top head. In a humid coastal environment that depression collects condensate, and rain, however rare, does the same. When a drum with water sitting on the block is charged into a melter, the water flashes to steam under a layer of hot bitumen and the result is violent foaming and boil-over. Store drums with the closures uppermost and tight, keep them covered, and check the head before charging. This is a safety point rather than a quality point and it is the one most often left off a packing specification. Third, store off the ground and under cover. Dunnage keeps drums out of standing water and off ground that is itself radiating heat; cover keeps direct solar gain off the steel and slows the corrosion that salt-laden humid air drives on both coasts. Fourth, protect the identification. Sun degrades printed markings and labels, and a drum whose batch identification has faded is a drum that cannot be tied to its Certificate of Analysis. Mark durably, record the batch and seal numbers at loading, and photograph the stack on arrival. None of the above is a standard requirement; it is common industry practice for hot destinations, and it is stated here as practice rather than as specification.

Buyer questions

Frequently asked questions about bitumen supply to Saudi Arabia

Which port should we use for a project in Riyadh, Jeddah or the Eastern Province?

It depends on the site, and on this market that is not a polite evasion but the single most valuable question on the page. Saudi Arabia has two seaboards that do not substitute for each other. The Red Sea ports — Jeddah Islamic Port, King Abdullah Port near Rabigh, Yanbu, Duba in the far north-west and Jazan in the south — are reached from the north through the Suez Canal or from the south through the Bab el-Mandeb strait, and they face Jeddah, Makkah, Madinah, Taif and the western and north-western regions. The Gulf ports — King Abdulaziz Port at Dammam, the commercial and industrial ports at Jubail, and Ras Al Khair — are reached through the Strait of Hormuz and the Gulf of Oman, and they face the Eastern Province, Al Ahsa and, critically, the interior. Commonly cited road distances, given for orientation only, put Dammam to Riyadh at roughly 400 km against roughly 950 km from Jeddah. For a cargo as heavy and as low in value density as binder, that difference is a major cost line rather than a delivery detail, so a Riyadh project is normally a Gulf-coast decision and a Jeddah or Madinah project is normally a Red Sea decision. Two rules follow. State on every offer which coast and which port the price is built on and what is excluded beyond it, and confirm with a freight forwarder in writing that the gateway you have chosen is open to this commodity in your packing on your date. Nothing on this page states that any port, berth, terminal or inland service is currently available.

Which grade does Saudi Arabia use, and what is the Saudi national standard number for paving bitumen?

The honest answer to the first half is that the Kingdom is too large and too climatically varied to have one grade, and the honest answer to the second half is that this page will not print a designation. On grade: sustained extreme summer pavement temperature makes rutting the governing failure mode on both coasts, in the central interior and in the deserts, which points to 40/50, to the harder half of 60/70, and to a demanding high-temperature performance grade with modification where the pavement is also heavily loaded. In the northern belt around Tabuk, Al Jouf, Arar and Turaif, and in the south-western highlands around Taif and Abha, the argument softens or inverts, and the low-temperature end becomes a real requirement rather than a formality. On the standard number: Saudi Arabia has a national standards body, the Saudi Standards, Metrology and Quality Organization, and the Gulf states adopt regional standards developed through the GCC Standardization Organization. But procurement runs through the transport ministry and the national roads authority, the municipal authorities of the major cities, the Royal Commission for Jubail and Yanbu, large industrial clients applying their own engineering standards, and international consultants on the development projects, and their documents are not uniform. The requirement that binds your shipment is the one the tender incorporates. Ask for the binder clause and quote against it. If an offer form asks you to name a Saudi standard number, say the tender governs rather than filling the box with a designation you cannot substantiate.

Why does the climate push toward 40/50, and when is that the wrong answer?

Because of what the pavement, rather than the air, actually experiences. A dark asphalt surface under direct solar exposure runs substantially hotter than the air above it, and on the Saudi coasts the summer night minima stay high enough that the pavement does not recover between days — so the binder is held near the top of its service range for long unbroken periods rather than cycled up and down. That is the most severe form of the rutting case, and a harder binder resists it better: a 40/50 typically carries a softening point of 52 to 60 °C against 49 to 56 °C for a 60/70 from the same source. Note the oddity that drives the whole discussion: penetration is measured with a needle at 25 °C, a temperature a Saudi summer pavement does not see for months, so the grade name describes the binder in a condition almost unrelated to the one in which it fails. That is precisely why a performance grade, derived from pavement temperature statistics, translates the climate better than a penetration number does. The harder grade is the wrong answer in three places. In the northern interior, where frost and sub-zero nights are real, a hard binder is a thermal cracking risk. In the south-western highlands, where Abha sits at roughly 2,200 m and summers are mild, the rutting argument largely disappears. And in the central interior the answer is more subtle: the high end still dominates, so a hard grade is right, but the wide day-to-night swing means the binder cycles a long way daily and the low-temperature end deserves to be checked rather than assumed away.

Our tender names a performance grade such as PG 76-10. What does that require, and does it mean the binder is polymer modified?

It requires a full grading schedule and it does not, on its own, tell you anything about composition. On the schedule: a performance grade cannot be derived from a penetration certificate. It needs dynamic shear rheometer testing on unaged and rolling thin-film oven aged binder to AASHTO T315, rolling thin-film oven ageing to AASHTO T240, pressure ageing vessel conditioning to AASHTO R28, dynamic shear on the pressure-aged residue for the intermediate-temperature fatigue criterion, bending beam rheometer testing of that residue to AASHTO T313 for the low-temperature grade, rotational viscosity to AASHTO T316 and flash point to AASHTO T48. Where the clause is written against AASHTO M332 rather than M320, add the multiple stress creep recovery test to AASHTO T350, which produces both the non-recoverable creep compliance limits for the traffic designations S, H, V and E and a percent recovery result. On composition: there are two routes to a high high-temperature grade. A stiff straight-run base binder gets there by being stiff, cheaply and honestly, but it buys rut resistance at the cost of low-temperature performance. Polymer modification gets there while doing much less damage at the low-temperature end and adds elastic recovery. The clue on the certificate is the useful temperature interval — the span between the two grade numbers. PG 76-10 spans 86 °C, which a stiff base binder can reach; PG 76-22 spans 98 °C, which is very hard to reach without modification. Confirm the inference with the MSCR percent recovery result, which is the most direct evidence of elastomeric modification available on a certificate, and where a binder is sold as modified, require elastic recovery to ASTM D6084 and storage stability to ASTM D7173 or EN 13399. A supplier who says polymer modified and produces neither is making a marketing claim.

What is SASO, and what does the import conformity mechanism require from us?

SASO is the Saudi Standards, Metrology and Quality Organization, the Kingdom’s national standards body: it develops and issues Saudi standards, runs the national metrology function and issues technical regulations for products placed on the market, and national standards bodies of that kind also carry a role in the conformity assessment arrangements applying to goods placed on the market. Conformity assessment on Saudi imports has been handled electronically rather than on paper, through a product safety arrangement operated on an online platform that has been referred to as Saber. That name is given only so the shape of the system is recognisable; nothing here states that an arrangement in that form is in force on your shipment date, who administers it then, or that it reaches bitumen at all. The mechanism can be described even though the current scope cannot. Systems of this family apply to products defined by a technical regulation, by category and by tariff classification, and they normally produce two certificates in sequence: a product certificate of conformity, issued against the product and the standard or regulation it is assessed to and valid for a period, and then a shipment certificate of conformity issued for each consignment against that product certificate. The importer holds the registration and raises the entry; the supplier produces the technical evidence — test reports against the referenced standard, product identification, batch or lot identification and the commercial documents. Neither side can complete it alone, which is why it belongs in the contract discussion rather than in the shipping instructions. Where a required certificate is absent, goods can be detained, inspected and tested at the importer’s cost, penalised or refused entry. This page states no position on whether bitumen is currently within the scope of any technical regulation, and it names no accepted conformity assessment body, because regulations, product lists, tariff lines and accepted bodies change and an undated assertion is precise enough to plan a shipment on and wrong often enough to ruin one. Put the question in writing to a licensed customs broker in the Kingdom before you contract, and ask it again if the shipment slips.

Our drums will stand in the sun at the port. What actually happens, and how do we specify against it?

Start with the number. A Bitumen 60/70 has a ring and ball softening point typically between 49 and 56 °C. A dark, closed steel drum absorbing direct solar radiation through a Saudi summer day is not at shaded air temperature; it runs well above it, and on the coasts the night gives very little back. So the block inside softens toward the top of its service range for part of every day. The product itself is not ruined by being warm — bitumen is heated far higher than that in normal use — but the package is under load, and the predictable symptoms are drum distortion and bulging, leaning and unstable stacks, and adjacent units that become difficult to separate cleanly. With poly or jumbo bags the same physics is much harsher, because a meltable bag depends on the block holding its shape: slumping and bag-to-bag adhesion turn a stack of discrete units into a mass. The specification response has four parts. Store under cover and off the ground on dunnage, so that direct solar gain is off the steel and the drums are out of ground heat and standing water. Limit stack height for hot storage rather than importing a warehouse rule, and inspect stacks after a heat spell. Keep dwell short and plan clearance so that containers are stripped promptly, because a closed box on a quay is a more severe thermal environment than the voyage was. And attend to water, which is the genuine hazard rather than the heat: drums are filled hot and the block shrinks on cooling, leaving a depression in the top head that collects condensate in humid coastal air. Water sitting on the block flashes to steam when the drum is charged into a melter, and the result is violent foaming. Store closures uppermost and tight, and check the head before charging. None of that is a standard requirement; it is common industry practice for hot destinations.

Can we buy in bulk, or should it be drums?

Both are genuinely possible here, which is unusual on this site, because Saudi Arabia has a functioning domestic bulk market rather than only a packed one. The honest answer turns on what exists at the receiving end and on how far inland it is. Bulk is only useful where the receiver has heated tankage of adequate capacity, a compatible discharge connection, a pump and the ability to take the whole load promptly. A fixed asphalt plant on the edge of a major city usually has all of that; a mobile plant on a desert or rural project frequently has none of it, and no freight quotation changes that. For an imported parcel there is a second condition: a bulk sea parcel needs a contracted receiving arrangement with a terminal that has heated storage for this product, and that is a commercial arrangement with an individual operator which can never be inferred from a port’s name, its size or the presence of oil handling there. Nothing on this page states that any Saudi facility handles bitumen in bulk. Against that, drums need none of it: they can be handled without a terminal crane, stored on site through a shutdown, heated one unit at a time, taken in staged call-off, and they fail locally — a damaged drum costs one drum out of eighty, whereas a compromised bulk load costs the consignment. Two further considerations point the same way. A polymer modified binder in bulk wants controlled heating and agitation to stay homogeneous, which fits a long hot inland haul with standing time badly. And where the movement is above 100 °C it falls to be classified as UN 3257, elevated temperature liquid, n.o.s., Class 9 under the UN model regulations, with marking, documentation, equipment and driver qualification consequences to settle with the carrier before booking. Specify new steel drums in the contract in words: reconditioned drums are the commonest source of contamination disputes in this trade anywhere.

When is the Saudi working season, and what about the summer restriction on outdoor work?

The season is the inverse of a temperate market. Winter is the comfortable working period across most of the Kingdom — mild on both coasts, cool and dry in the interior — and summer is the constrained one. The constraint is not the one buyers from cooler markets expect. In extreme heat the mat does not cool too fast; it cools slowly and can stay hot and tender under the roller, which is a compaction control problem of the opposite kind. The real summer constraints are working conditions in the open and the resulting shift to night paving, which is common practice in this region and which changes the delivery and call-off pattern a supplier has to support: material has to be available at the plant on a night cycle rather than a day one. Saudi Arabia also operates a recurring restriction on outdoor work in the middle of the day during the hottest part of the summer, administered by the ministry responsible for human resources; it is announced with its dates and hours for each summer, and both should be confirmed for the year in question rather than assumed from a previous year. Two regional qualifications matter. In the south-western highlands the season is bounded by rain rather than by heat, because that is the one part of the country with meaningful summer rainfall driven by moist air lifted over the escarpment. And in the northern belt the winter itself becomes a constraint, with frost and cold nights limiting laying at the coldest times. The practical defence in every region is the same: order ahead of the window rather than into it, and hold drummed material under cover so that it is usable on the first workable shift.

Where to go next

The binder grades this climate actually calls for.

PG 76-10 — for the hottest coastal and interior conditions, where winter is not a design case
PG 76-16 — where a hot summer meets genuinely cold highland nights

How this page is maintainedThe geography on this page — ports, coasts, maritime approaches, cities, altitudes, road axes, railway gauge and climate regions — is public and is described because it is stable and verifiable. Road distances are commonly cited approximations given for orientation only, they vary with the alignment actually used, and they are not a basis for a freight calculation. The operating status of any port, berth, terminal, dry port, road, railway or land crossing is not stated anywhere, because it changes constantly and cannot be verified from a supplier page; confirm current routing, gateway, mode, inland clearance and permitted vehicle weights with a freight forwarder in writing before contracting. No transit times, freight rates, vehicle payloads, vessel or tanker capacities, port throughput or draught figures, container free time periods, detention charges, duty rates, taxes or levies are given. No refinery, terminal operator, shipping line, haulier, forwarder, clearing agent, conformity assessment body, product brand or client is named as a counterparty; where a port, facility, authority or standards body is named it is named as public geography or as a public institution, and no commercial relationship with any of them is claimed or implied. This company makes no claim of presence, office, agency, storage or shipping history in Saudi Arabia. Conformity assessment is described as a mechanism only: this page states no position on whether bitumen is currently within the scope of any Saudi technical regulation or conformity programme, and it names no accepted conformity assessment body, because regulations, product lists, tariff lines and accepted bodies change and must be confirmed with a licensed customs broker in the Kingdom for the specific product, description, tariff classification and shipment date. No Saudi or Gulf standard designation for paving bitumen is quoted, because procurement runs through the transport ministry and national roads authority, the municipal authorities of the major cities, the Royal Commission for Jubail and Yanbu, industrial clients applying their own engineering standards and internationally supervised development projects, whose documents are not uniform; the binding requirement is the one the tender incorporates. Penetration-grade specification values are stated as typical export ranges cross-referenced to the published ASTM, AASHTO and EN test methods that produce them, and are provided for technical orientation and commercial discussion. Performance grading requirements are stated as the criteria written in AASHTO M320, AASHTO M332 and the associated test methods rather than as any supplier’s values. Where a tender cites a standard directly, the acceptance limits are those in the cited text, and the binding specification for any shipment is the one written into the sales contract and evidenced by the batch Certificate of Analysis. Storage, stacking and hot-weather packing guidance is stated as common industry practice for hot destinations and not as a standard requirement. Nothing on this page is legal, customs, regulatory, insurance or compliance advice: a buyer trading into the Kingdom must obtain their own independent advice covering the goods, the parties, the customs territory and the payment mechanism. If you find a value here that conflicts with a current standard, tell us and we will correct it.

Request a quotation for delivery to Saudi Arabia

Send the grade exactly as your tender names it, the tonnage and the packing — and before anything else, the two things that decide the whole structure of the offer: the actual delivery town rather than the country, and which coast it should be served from. Those answers settle the inland haul, the climate zone, the grade argument and the packing plan in one step. State the Incoterms 2020 rule you want quoted and the named place it applies to. If the clause is performance graded, say whether it is written against AASHTO M320 or M332 and at which traffic level, because that decides which test data has to exist before anything is certified. If you hold the tender’s binder clause, attach it, and the offer will be checked against it line by line — including the ageing procedure, the measured softening point, where in the grade band the batch has to sit, and the low-temperature line that an interior, northern or highland site needs and that no standard export certificate carries. Tell us as well what the storage looks like at the far end, because on this market what happens to the drums after they land is a technical question. Contact is by WhatsApp on +971 56 144 5733.

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