Thailand → Saudi
A real cargo, not a study: 35,000 tonnes of wood to move from Thailand to Saudi Arabia. The trade data says what it almost certainly is, which decides the ship — and the discharge port is the part that is actually hard.
1. The cargo is almost certainly MDF fibreboard. HS 4411 is $191.6m and 674,401 tonnes of the $201m Thailand→Saudi wood trade (UN Comtrade 2024) — 95% of it. 35,000 t is about three weeks of a flow that already runs. Still worth confirming the form with the shipper, because it decides the ship.
2. It needs a supramax or ultramax, not a handysize. Bundled MDF at ~1.4–1.7 m³/t needs roughly 49–60,000 m³ — a 38,000 dwt handysize is marginal on cube. If it turns out to be woodchips, a handysize is impossible (~2.5 m³/t).
3. The discharge port is the real problem, not the ship. Dammam and Jubail are close to unfixable under the Hormuz situation; Jeddah is open but inside the war-risk listed area, so every quote carries premium and crew bonuses on short validity. Salalah or Sohar plus overland is a genuine third option — price it in parallel, not as a fallback.
| Company | Country | Type | Fit | Contacts found | Why it fits |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
- Yehia Ghazzawi — Head of Dry Cargo Middle East, NORDEN, Dubai · dubai@norden.com · +971 4 273 3844
- Philip Wiencken — Head of Middle East Handy/Supramax, Ultrabulk, Dubai · smax.sin@ultrabulk.com
- Fakrudeen Ahamed K. Noorullah — Sr Mgr Chartering, Thoresen, Sharjah · tramp@thoresen.com · +971 50 462 2548
- Christian Elbæk — Chartering Manager, Lauritzen, Dubai JLT · chartering.ae@lauritzenbulkers.com
- Hari Haran — Commercial, Orient Asia Lines, Bangkok · contact@orientasialines.com · +66 81 734 0907
Orient Asia Lines is the interesting one — a breakbulk liner running scheduled SE Asia → Arabian Gulf/Red Sea sailings with forestry products on its own cargo list, head office in Bangkok. Price liner against charter.
$42–50 per tonne all-in to Jeddah, so roughly $1.5–1.75m total, of which $100–250k is war risk.
No published Thailand→Jeddah fixture exists to anchor against. The range is derived from time-charter comparables plus voyage estimate and current war-risk loadings. Its job is to tell you whether a broker's number is sane.
Insist the quote states: war risk shown separately (so Jeddah and Salalah compare honestly); laytime and demurrage; per-tonne or lumpsum and what happens at ±5% quantity; who supplies and pays for dunnage, ISPM-15 compliant.
- Ask the shipper the cargo form and bundle spec — sawn, logs, chips, pellets or MDF. One question, and it decides handysize vs supramax.
- Establish the receiver's real discharge preference. If they say Dammam, raise the Hormuz problem before collecting quotes nobody will honour.
- Load port: mills cluster in Songkhla, but Songkhla is draft-limited to 8.23 m — so Laem Chabang single-port, or Songkhla part-load plus top-off.
- SABER/SASO certificates — product and shipment CoCs, formaldehyde-graded for MDF. Saudi customs will not release without them.
- ISPM-15 — enforced strictly since Jul 2024 and it covers the ship's own dunnage and the bundle bearers, not just the cargo. Plus phyto and COO.
- War-risk conditions were verified in early August and move daily — re-check before quoting.