Neom | Saudi minister claims ‘no change in scale’ of giga project

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Early this month, NCE and many western outlets followed up on Bloomberg reporting on comments from a person familiar with Neom that The Line was being cut from 170km long to 2.4km.

Neom includes a range of projects in the Tabuk region in northwest Saudi Arabia, such as Trojena artificial lake, The Oxagon mega port, The Line and numerous resort destinations, which in total has cost estimates ranging from $1 trillion to $1.5 trillion (£790bn to £1.19 trillion).

The Saudi government has started seeking additional external investment in Neom this month. It has so far been funded by the Public Investment Fund (PIF), its national sovereign wealth fund. The PIF has $925bn (£737bn) under management according to its website.

Saudi Arabia is trying to use Neom as a flagship project to move the country away from dependency on oil and gas exports.

CNBC published an interview which took place on 29 April at World Economic Forum’s special meeting in Riyadh with Saudi Arabia minister of economy and planning Faisal Al Ibrahim, where journalist Dan Murphy questioned him about the reports of project curtailment.

“All projects are moving full steam ahead,” Al Ibrahim said. “We set out to do something unprecedented and we’re doing something unprecedented, and we will deliver something that’s unprecedented.”

He referred to “feedback from the market” and said the government would “always prioritise where we can optimise for optimal economic impact”.

Al Ibrahim said that the Saudi economy was “growing fast” but said “we don’t want to overheat it”.

“We don’t want to deliver these projects at the cost of importing too much against our own interest,” he added. “We will continue delivering these projects in a manner that meets these priorities, delivers these projects and has the optimal healthy impact for our economy and the non-oil, the healthy non-oil growth within it.”

He said the “intended scale” of Neom was “continuing as planned”, but did not offer an update on timeframe.

“There is no change in scale,” he said. “It is a long-term project that’s modular in design.”

He added that Saudi is “seeing increased investor interest on all of these projects” and that the projects “will be delivered to their scale and in a manner that in terms of priorities suits the needs [and returns] of the projects”.

Neom is controversial because of reports from the BBC of at least one person from the local indigenous community being murdered during efforts to clear the area by security services.

The UN Human Rights Council also put out a statement in May 2023 decrying news that three men from the Howeitat tribe were to be executed for resisting the Neom project. Furthermore, no independent observers or workers unions are allowed in the country.

Last February, AtkinsRéalis and Jacobs were appointed as delivery partners on The Line.

Aecom and Bechtel have also previously been appointed to provide project management services for the first phase of The Line. Keller signed a major piling contract worth around £51M on the project in 2022.

In February 2024, Neom released a promotional video showing illustrative imagery and a short interview with the Line’s chief development officer Denis Hickey.

It is widely understood that contractors involved in Neom sign non-disclosure agreements which prevent them from sharing any information about projects including The Line.

However, Bloomberg’s report from earlier this month said it had seen documentation from one contractor showing that it was dismissing some of its workforce on the project.

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