Ras Tanura Airport is a small airport in the western side of Ras Tanura

Ras Tanura

Ras Tanura is a city in the Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia located on a peninsula extending into the Persian Gulf...

 city in the Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia

Saudi Arabia

The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia , commonly known in British English as Saudi Arabia and in Arabic as as-Sa‘ūdiyyah , is the largest state in Western Asia by land area, constituting the bulk of the Arabian Peninsula, and the second-largest in the Arab World...

. The airport occupies an area of 1.9 km², surrounded by residential areas and oil pipelines.

Overview

The airport is owned and operated by the Saudi Arabian Oil Company Saudi Aramco

Saudi Aramco

Saudi Aramco , officially the Saudi Arabian Oil Company, is the national oil company of Saudi Arabia.Saudi Aramco is the world's largest and most valuable privately-held company, with estimates of its value in 2011 to be $7 trillion USD.Saudi Aramco has both the largest proven crude oil reserves,...

 for logistics operations. The airport was being used for Aramco jets and helicopters until the completion of the nearby King Fahd International Airport

King Fahd International Airport

King Fahd International Airport is located 20 kilometers northwest of Dammam, Saudi Arabia. It is the largest airport in the world in terms of land area . The airport's basic infrastructure was complete by the end of 1990, which allowed the Allied forces engaged in the first Gulf War in early...

 in Dammam

Dammam

Dammam is the capital of the Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia, the most oil-rich region in the world. The judicial and administrative bodies of the province and several government departments are located in the city. Dammam is the largest city in the Eastern Province and third largest in Saudi...

, when the company moved its aviation operations from Ras Tanura and Dhahran to Dammam. At the present time the airport is only being used as heliport to provide logistics to the nearby offshore rigs in the Persian Gulf

Persian Gulf

The Persian Gulf, in Southwest Asia, is an extension of the Indian Ocean located between Iran and the Arabian Peninsula.The Persian Gulf was the focus of the 1980–1988 Iran-Iraq War, in which each side attacked the other's oil tankers...

.

Facilities

The airport has one runway that is 2,152 meters long and 30 meters wide with lights and ILS

Instrument Landing System

An instrument landing system is a ground-based instrument approach system that provides precision guidance to an aircraft approaching and landing on a runway, using a combination of radio signals and, in many cases, high-intensity lighting arrays to enable a safe landing during instrument...

 support. There are two parking/gate for medium-sized jets, and several helipad

Helipad

Helipad is a common abbreviation for helicopter landing pad, a landing area for helicopters. While helicopters are able to operate on a variety of relatively flat surfaces, a fabricated helipad provides a clearly marked hard surface away from obstacles where a helicopter can safely...

s can be found in the airport.

Parking

A large parking lot is available outside the airport gate, and few lots available inside the gate for airport employees only.