National Shipping Company of Saudi Arabia (Bahri) has launched a new route between the UK and the Middle East, connecting Northern Europe and the Gulf region.

The service will offer options for transporting heavy cargo from Jeddah to the Thames-side port Tilbury in the UK, stopping at Jebel Ali in the UAE, and Dammam, before returning to Saudi Arabia’s second-largest city.

Bahri said in a statement that a wide range of other ports in the region will also be served.

The service will be operated by two vessels, according to the Saudi Gazette, including the 25,957-deadweight-tonnage multi-purpose ship Bahri Jeddah and sister ship Bahri Abha, both built in 2013.

“Thanks to the extreme flexibility of these vessels and the service, we have the benefit of not being limited to any single target sector of the market,” said Trevor Kay, Bahri’s service manager for DKT Allseas Shipping, the liner agent for the route.

DKT Allseas Shipping is a 50:50 joint venture between UK-based Allseas Global Logistics and Belgium’s De Keyser Thornton.

“However, a major focus is big project cargoes, which can be handled by the on-board cranes and via RoRo [roll on/roll off]…. Shippers now have the benefit of a direct call into the UK, instead of having to trans-ship to Antwerp,” said Kay.