Jubayl, al-

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JUBAYL, AL-

A small port on the Gulf coast of Saudi Arabia.

Al-Jubayl traditionally served the Najdi hinterland, especially al-Qasim district. The kingdom's Second Five-Year Development Plan (19751980) teamed al-Jubayl with Yanbu on the Red Sea coast in an ambitious industrial development scheme involving crude oil refining, petrochemical complexes, and steel-manufacturing industries, linked by transSaudi Arabian oil and gas pipelines. The development of the two sites was expected to take ten years and cost in excess of $70 billion. Al-Jubayl was to be the bigger of the two, with three petroleum refineries, six petrochemical plants, an aluminum smelter, and a steel mill, as well as support industries and an industrial seaport. By 1999, seventeen basic industrial plants had been established and the city had an estimated population of 101,000, projected to grow to 290,000 by 2010. It also had acquired an industrial college and an airport.


Bibliography


Farsy, Fouad al-. Modernity and Tradition: The Saudi Equation. London: Kegan Paul International, 1991.

j. e. peterson