meed-logo

line1 line2 line3
SIGN IN / REGISTER

Triple Bay reaches 72% completion rate

15 May 2025

 

Triple Bay, the wellness hub of Saudi Arabia’s Amaala development, has reached a completion rate of 72%, Ben Edwards, group head of cost, commercial and procurement at Red Sea Global, told the Saudi Gigaprojects summit organised by MEED and GlobalData in Riyadh on 13 May.

The completion levels of the various properties, including hotels, a golf club and marina, at the scenic coastal development range from 64% to 88% and the race is on to reach their completion target dates, according to Edwards.

The overall plan for Amaala entails the development of 30 resorts and 1,170 residences. The project’s first phase is expected to be completed in 2027.

With the projects approaching completion, the next opportunity for partners and suppliers will be on the operations side of the assets.

Edwards also said that the Thuwal Private Retreat, a new island resort off the Red Sea coast, has been completed.

The project is Red Sea Global’s first development besides The Red Sea Project and Amaala, and is located on a 17,000 square-metre islet in a coral archipelago.

The resort will have a three-bedroom villa, three one-bedroom suites, a beach club, gym and wellness centre.

The destination will be wholly owned and operated by Red Sea Global.

On 12 May, Edwards also said that the main passenger terminal building at the Red Sea International airport catering to the Red Sea and Amaala developments is expected to become fully operational in the next few months.

Several hotels have been opened as part of the first phase of the development. According to Edwards, several other hotels are approaching completion in line with the developer’s commitment to deliver 25 hotels by 2025.

The executive said construction work was completed last year for a private island, which is now open.

https://image.digitalinsightresearch.in/uploads/NewsArticle/13870880/main.jpg
Jennifer Aguinaldo

Register for MEED's guest program now to access this article.

Click here to register
Exclusive from Meed
Related Articles
  • PIF’s Humain and US chipmakers seal multibillion-dollar deals

    15 May 2025

    Humain, the Saudi Arabia Public Investment Fund (PIF)-owned artificial intelligence (AI) firm, has signed preliminary deals with US chipmakers AMD and Nvidia to build a multibillion-dollar advanced digital infrastructure in the kingdom.

    The firms announced the deals on 13 May, coinciding with the first day of US President Donald Trump’s trip to the Gulf states.

    AMD said it will invest up to $10bn to deploy 500MW of AI compute capacity in Saudi Arabia over the next five years.

    According to AMD, the project entails building “the world’s most open, scalable, resilient and cost-efficient AI infrastructure, that will power the future of global intelligence through a network of AMD-based AI computing centres stretching from Saudi Arabia to the US”.

    It added: “The AI superstructure built by AMD and Humain will be open by design, accessible at scale and optimised to power AI workloads across enterprise, start-up and sovereign markets.

    “Humain will oversee end-to-end delivery, including [the construction of a] hyperscale data centre, sustainable power systems and global fiber interconnects, and AMD will provide the full spectrum of the AMD AI compute portfolio and the AMD ROCm open software ecosystem.”

    The ROCm is an open software stack comprising drivers, development tools and application programming interfaces that enable graphic processing unit (GPU) programming from low-level kernel to end-user applications, according to AMD.

    Similarly, GPU maker Nvidia agreed to develop a similar compute capacity to build “AI factories” in Saudi Arabia with a projected capacity of up to 500MW.

    These will require “several hundred thousand” of Nvidia’s most advanced GPUs over the next five years.

    The firm said the first phase of deployment will be an 18,000 Nvidia GB300 Grace Blackwell AI supercomputer with Nvidia InfiniBand networking.

    “These hyperscale AI data centres will provide a secure foundational infrastructure for training and deploying sovereign AI models at scale, enabling industries across Saudi Arabia and worldwide to accelerate innovation and digital transformation,” the firm said.

    The chosen platform is Nvidia Omniverse, which the firm describes as “a multi-tenant system to drive acceleration of the new era of physical AI and robotics through simulation, optimisation and operation of physical environments by new human-AI-led solutions”.

    This will allow industries such as manufacturing, logistics and energy to create fully integrated digital twins, boosting efficiency, safety and sustainability while fast-tracking the kingdom’s journey toward Industry 4.0, it added.

    The UAE and Nvidia, in particular, are expected to announce a deal over the next 24 hours for the supply of up to 1 million GPUs to the UAE, international media reports indicate.

    https://image.digitalinsightresearch.in/uploads/NewsArticle/13887968/main.jpg
    Jennifer Aguinaldo
  • Oman awards $670m Adam-Thumrait road contracts

    15 May 2025

    Oman’s Ministry of Transport, Communications & Information Technology has awarded three contracts totalling over RO258m ($670m) for packages three, four and five of the Adam-Thumrait road dualisation project.

    The contracts were awarded to joint ventures of local and Saudi-based firms.

    The first contract covering the construction works on package three was awarded to a joint venture of local firm Sarooj Construction Company and Saudi Arabia’s Rawaf Contracting Company.

    Package three covers a 132.5 kilometre-long stretch of highway connecting Haima with Maqshan. It includes the construction of roads with 16 detour lanes, an intersection for Maqshan and 19 side parking slots.

    The second contract, covering package four, was awarded to Oman’s Galfar Engineering & Contracting and Saudi Arabia’s Alomaier Trading & Contracting Company.

    Package four is 135km long and connects Maqshan to Dokah. The scope includes the construction of roads with 14 detour lanes and 27 side parking lots.

    The third contract, covering the construction of package five, was awarded to the joint venture of Oman Gulf Company and Saudi Arabia’s Kom Al-Fahd Trading, Industry & Contracting Company.

     

     

    In September last year, MEED reported that Oman’s Transport, Communications & Information Technology Ministry had opened bids for packages three, four and five of the Adam-Thumrait road dualisation project. 

    US-based Parsons is the consultant for the Adam-Thumrait road expansion project.

    The ministry reissued the tender for the contracts on 22 June last year. The tender was open exclusively for Saudi-Omani joint ventures.

    The contracts were first tendered in 2019 and later cancelled.

    The project links Muscat and Salalah via a fully dualised road. It will also upgrade the existing single carriageway between Adam and Thumrait to a four-lane carriageway.

    The 717.5km-long highway project is divided into five packages.

    Packages one and two were completed in 2019. UAE-based Ghantoot Transport & General Contracting Company was the contractor for package one. Lebanon-based Consolidated Contractors Company (CCC) was the contractor for package two.

    https://image.digitalinsightresearch.in/uploads/NewsArticle/13885985/main.jpg
    Yasir Iqbal
  • US and Qatar sign wide-reaching strategic deals

    15 May 2025

    During US President Donald Trump’s trip to Doha, the US and Qatar signed a series of high-value agreements spanning aviation, defence and other technologies, deepening economic and strategic ties between the two nations.

    Headlining the visit was a landmark aircraft order by Qatar Airways for up to 210 Boeing aircraft – including the 787 Dreamliner and the 777X models – to be delivered over the next seven years.

    Qatar Airways group CEO Badr Mohammed Al-Meer hailed the deal as a “critical next step” for the airline, praising its existing Boeing fleet and stating that the new order would deliver the “cleanest, youngest and most efficient fleet in global aviation”.

    The White House valued the deal at approximately $96bn, though Trump quoted figures as high as $200bn during the announcement. Either way, it marks the single largest order for Boeing’s 787 series to date and will provide much-needed support for the US firm’s ailing share price.

    In addition to the Boeing deal, US and Qatari officials finalised a variety of defence contracts with US firms, including a $2bn deal with General Atomics for unmanned aerial vehicles and a $1bn deal with Raytheon for its latest counter-drone technology – making Qatar its first international buyer.

    The US meanwhile signed a statement of intent for potentially $38bn in future investments in the air defence, maritime security and other support infrastructure for the US’ Al-Udeid Air Base in Qatar.

    A series of technology partnership agreements were also signed, including a $1bn Qatari joint venture with US firms in the emerging field of quantum technologies.

    The cumulative value of these and related deals is projected to exceed $1.2tn, reflecting a broader and long-term economic engagement between the two countries, though it remains unclear where the full measure of this figure is expected to come from.

    The expansive new deals will build on already-strong existing US-Qatar economic ties, including Qatari investments in US energy projects and ongoing military sales valued at over $26bn.

    There is also the possibility of Qatar gifting the US a $400m luxury Boeing 747-8 for use by Trump during his presidency as a replacement for the Air Force One fleet’s ageing 747-200Bs – a model that first entered service in 1971 – though the proposition has met with US political resistance.

    https://image.digitalinsightresearch.in/uploads/NewsArticle/13885936/main.jpg
    John Bambridge
  • Saudi Arabia prepares to tender 9GW of thermal capacity

    15 May 2025

     

    Saudi Arabia’s main utility firm, Saudi Electricity Company (SEC), and the principal buyer, Saudi Power Procurement Company (SPPC), plan to tender the contracts to build and develop, respectively, combined-cycle gas turbine (CCGT) power generation plants before the end of the year.

    According to industry sources, SEC is expected to invite engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contractors to bid for a CCGT power generation plant in Shoaibah, while SPPC could start prequalifying bidders for a gas-fired independent power plant (IPP) located in Shuqaiq or Dawadmi.

    One of the sources said the total capacity being considered is 9GW.

    It is unclear if the SPPC will split the Dawadmi IPP into two contracts, similar to the four IPP schemes it awarded in 2023 and 2024, where each scheme was divided into two packages.

    The project is part of the massive capacity buildout in Saudi Arabia as the kingdom implements its liquid fuel displacement programme by 2030 and aims for renewable energy to account for 50% of its total installed generation capacity by the end of the decade.

    The SPPC awarded eight gas-fired IPP contracts with a total capacity of 14.4GW between 2023 and 2024.

    SEC last year and during the first several months of this year awarded the contracts or issued the limited notices to proceed for six CCGT projects with a total combined capacity of nearly 14GW, exclusive of the 1.2GW Rabigh power plant project awarded in 2023 to a team led by Saudi utility developer Acwa Power.

    These contracts bring the total capacity of under-construction gas-fired power generation plants in Saudi Arabia to roughly 30GW, including the 475MW cogeneration plant in Marjan. 

    Solar and wind projects with a total capacity of around 16.4GW are also under construction in the kingdom.

    In its 2024 earnings report, SEC said the kingdom’s generation capacity connected to the grid reached 92.15GW in 2024, up 6.9% over 2023, when installed capacity stood at 86.23GW.

    The firm also said it aims to expand its power transmission network to approximately 160,000 kilometres by 2030, up 60% over its existing network of about 99,800km.

    Related reads: 

    https://image.digitalinsightresearch.in/uploads/NewsArticle/13885932/main.jpg
    Jennifer Aguinaldo
  • New Murabba seeks consortiums for Mukaab project

    15 May 2025

     

    Register for MEED’s 14-day trial access 

    Saudi Arabia’s New Murabba Development Company (NMDC) has asked companies to prequalify for a contract that requires them to form consortiums to execute the main works for the Mukaab at the New Murabba downtown development in Riyadh.

    The notice was issued on 5 May with an initial submission deadline of 12 June.

    The Mukaab is a Najdi-inspired landmark that will be one of the largest buildings in the world. It will be 400 metres high, 400 metres wide and 400 metres long.

    Internally, it will have a tower on top of a spiral base and a structure featuring 2 million square metres (sq m) of floor space designated for hospitality. It will feature commercial spaces, cultural and tourist attractions, and residential and hotel units, as well as recreational facilities.

    Earlier this month, MEED exclusively reported that NMDC was prequalifying firms for three new contracts covering the construction works on the Mukaab at the New Murabba downtown development in Riyadh.

    MEED understands that the three packages comprise the Central Core Tower, Outriggers and Vertical Ribs, and could cost up to SR10bn ($2.6bn).

    Downtown destination

    The New Murabba destination will have a total floor area of more than 25 million sq m and feature more than 104,000 residential units, 9,000 hotel rooms and over 980,000 sq m of retail space.

    The scheme will include 1.4 million sq m of office space, 620,000 sq m of leisure facilities and 1.8 million sq m of space dedicated to community facilities.

    The project will be developed around the concept of sustainability and will include green spaces and walking and cycling paths to promote healthy, active lifestyles and community activities.

    Living, working and entertainment facilities will be created within a 15-minute walking radius. The area will use an internal transport system and be about a 20-minute drive from the airport.

    The downtown area will feature a museum, a technology and design university, an immersive, multipurpose theatre, and more than 80 entertainment and cultural venues.

    MEED’s latest report on Saudi Arabia includes:

    > GOVERNMENT: Riyadh takes the diplomatic initiative
    > ECONOMY: Saudi Arabia’s non-oil economy forges onward
    > BANKING:     Saudi banks work to keep pace with credit expansion
    > UPSTREAM: Saudi oil and gas spending to surpass 2024 level
    > DOWNSTREAM: Aramco’s recalibrated chemical goals reflect realism
    > POWER: Saudi power sector enters busiest year
    > WATER: Saudi water contracts set another annual record
    > CONSTRUCTION: Reprioritisation underpins Saudi construction
    > TRANSPORT: Riyadh pushes ahead with infrastructure development
    > DATABANK: Saudi Arabia’s growth trend heads up

    https://image.digitalinsightresearch.in/uploads/NewsArticle/13885914/main.jpg
    Yasir Iqbal