Crown Prince and Prime Minister Mohammed bin Salman has arrived in Saudi Arabia’s Eastern Province, a region that anchors the Kingdom’s oil, gas, and petrochemical sectors.
The province’s strategic importance has grown in recent years with major natural-gas discoveries at the Jafurah field, which added an estimated 229 trillion cubic feet to Saudi Arabia’s reserves.
The visit underscores the enduring Saudi tradition of direct leadership outreach. It is part of a continuing series of royal tours across the Kingdom, in which the Eastern Province has frequently played a central role.
The Crown Prince last visited the region on May 17, 2024, and previously in December 2018, engaging with local officials and residents to hear their needs firsthand and outline his vision for national transformation.
During the current tour, the Crown Prince chaired a Cabinet session in Dammam on Tuesday. The region has hosted two previous Cabinet meetings under King Salman since he assumed the throne in 2015. The monarch convened Cabinet sessions there during his visits in 2016 and 2017, the latter coinciding with the 29th Arab Summit in Dhahran. King Salman returned again in 2018.
In his 2016 visit, King Salman inaugurated five major Aramco projects spanning oil, gas, and the knowledge economy. Among them was the King Abdulaziz Center for World Culture (Ithra), now one of Saudi Arabia’s most prominent cultural and innovation hubs.
A Legacy of Royal Visits to the Eastern Province
Royal visits to the Eastern Province have historically blended public engagement with key milestones in the Kingdom’s energy development. King Abdulaziz’s first tour in 1936 came just three years after the Kingdom signed its oil concession agreement with Standard Oil of California. During that visit, the King met with senior executives of the Arabian American Oil Company to review exploration progress.
A turning point came on March 4, 1938, when oil began flowing from Dammam Well No. 7 - an event that reshaped Saudi Arabia’s future and the global energy landscape. The following year, King Abdulaziz traveled to Dhahran to mark the completion of the pipeline linking Dammam to Ras Tanura. He personally opened the valve to load the first shipment of Saudi crude, which sailed on May 1, 1939. His tour also included stops in Qatif, Dammam, Khobar, Abu Hadriya, and Jabal Qurain. He returned to Dhahran again in 1947.
Successive kings followed this path. King Saud visited the province four times in the 1950s, including high-profile meetings in Dammam with Syrian President Shukri al-Quwatli and Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser. King Faisal visited twice, inaugurating the College of Petroleum and Minerals in 1955 and a major irrigation project in 1971.
King Khalid toured the region in 1982, while King Fahd made five visits throughout the 1980s, launching major industrial, desalination, and infrastructure projects, among them the King Fahd Causeway linking Saudi Arabia and Bahrain.
King Abdullah also made several visits between 2006 and 2009, including presiding over Aramco’s 75th-anniversary celebrations and hosting key regional summits.
