RIYADH: Bahri, the Kingdom’s national shipping carrier, has expanded its Very Large Crude Carrier fleet to 42 with the addition of its first “gas ready” vessel, named “Rayah,” it said in a statement on Sunday. The tanker that can run on gas is built by International Maritime Industries and Hyundai Heavy Industries at the latter’s shipyard in Ulsan, South Korea. Bahri signed a SR371 million ($98.9 million) contract signed in September 2019 to build it. The construction of the vessel marks the successful completion of IMI’s first VLCC project, the statement said. Saudi Arabia made impressive progress in maritime connectivity at the regional level, according to the UN Conference on Trade and Development report for the third quarter of 2021. The Kingdom achieved 70.68 points in the Maritime Connectivity Index, which is the highest in the region, said the report. The index includes several sub-indicators, most notably, the number of scheduled visits by ships to the country within a week, capacity of the ships in standard units, in addition to the number of regular service paths provided by shipping lines to and from the country.