Saudi giga-project slowdown frees contractors for Expo

• Construction focus on fixed events
• No negotiation on opening date
• More bidders for each package

Saudi Arabia‘s reprioritisation of its giga-projects has given Expo 2030 Riyadh a larger pool of contractors, according to industry experts, as the kingdom shifts its construction focus towards events with fixed deadlines.

The Public Investment Fund dropped giga-project Neom‘s flagship The Line and Trojena developments from its 2026-30 strategy in August, freeing crews just as Expo 2030 moves from design into construction.

Every tender for the site has attracted at least seven or eight qualified bidders, officials said, with four or five contracts for signature buildings due to be awarded before year-end.

The spare capacity matters because the deadline cannot move, officials said.

Expo opens on October 1, 2030, and “there is no negotiation in that”, said Murad AlSayed, chief delivery officer for Expo 2030 Riyadh, at the Saudi Mega Projects conference in Riyadh last month.

Handovers at the Red Sea tourism project and the first phases of the Qiddiya and Diriyah developments freed up crews, as did the “re-planning and rescheduling of many other giga-projects”, he said.

Buyer’s market

Contractors are feeling the shift. “The re-prioritisation of the projects has now freed up a lot of capabilities, so we have more competition,” said Olivier Crasson, president of Saudi-based AlBawani Construction Company, who described it as “more of a buyer’s market”.

For Expo, that means more bidders competing for each package. For contractors, it means a lower chance of winning one.

Substructure work on the Saudi Arabia pavilion is almost 50 percent complete, AlSayed said, and a utility corridor of more than 7km is under construction. The final engineering design package is due this month.

The workforce will peak at between 40,000 and 50,000.

Subcontractor availability has continued to improve and companies remain positive about their project pipelines, Alrajhi Bank said in a note.

Alrajhi Bank, writing last week before the Houthi militant group stepped up attacks on Saudi infrastructure, said about a third of the kingdom’s construction companies “expect activity to increase over the next three months”.

Further reading:

• Saudi Arabia to build first Expo 2030 housing project via PPP
• Houthi attacks threaten Saudi Arabia’s events season
• Gulf builders feel strain from shipping insurance cost surge

Expo aims to finish major construction by the end of 2029, leaving the first nine months of 2030 for testing and rehearsals. Cranes will be cleared so exhibitors can install fragile museum pieces.

The projects that survived the reset now compete with one another. Expo shares the construction pipeline with the 2034 football World Cup and a wave of road and utility work, all drawing on the same materials and suppliers.

“We have all these mega-projects going at the same time, so we are all pulling from the same source,” said Melinda Wenn, programme director for Expo 2030 Riyadh at project management company Bechtel. “This is where I can see the challenge.”

Projects with fixed deadlines such as Expo typically hold six weeks to three months of contingency and absorb the extra cost to protect delivery dates, Sam Achampong of the Chartered Institute of Procurement and Supply told AGBI.

AlBawani’s Crasson warned that contractors without supply agreements in place would struggle, given “two years and a little bit to deliver major assets”.

Crasson worked on infrastructure for Dubai’s Expo 2020. “It’s extremely challenging,” he said, adding that organisers there were “very happy to have a break of one year for Covid to be able to catch up”.