Neom sets Shusha Island tendering schedule
27 March 2024
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Saudi Arabia’s Neom has outlined the tendering schedule for contracts to build assets on Shusha Island. They include the world’s largest coral garden, a marina, hotels, villas, a beach club, a museum and a research centre.
The Shusha Island construction work is divided into three packages known as GC1, GC2 and GC3.
GC1 consists of three assets. They are the Hipe Tower, Grotto entrance and Sunset pools.
Hipe Tower is a 220-metre-tall structure with a built-up area of about 50,000 square metres.
Grotto entrance is a 65-metre-high, fully excavated cave inside the island’s cliffs that opens through the sea and reaches the top of Hipe Tower.
The Sunset pools are large pools to be built on the edge of the development overlooking the Red Sea.
The client is expected to issue the request for proposal in the fourth quarter of this year.
GC2 includes the Village Cluster, Museum and Research Centre, Marina Dive Boutique Resort and a utility hub.
The Village is a residential cluster consisting of residential units, retail facilities, support facilities for King Abdullah University of Science Technology (Kaust) and a canopy.
The Marina Dive Boutique Resort will have 55 rooms, and retail and F&B facilities.
The request for proposal for GC2 is expected to be issued in the second quarter of this year.
GC3 includes the Canyon, Mindfulness Hotel, Beach Club, Bowl, landscaping, villas and utilities.
The Canyon will be a recreational hub for kayaking, rafting, climbing, ziplining, vertical drops and paddling.
The Mindfulness Hotel, also known as the Mindfulness Boutique Resort, will have about 65 hotel rooms and retail and F&B facilities.
The request for proposal for GC2 is expected to be issued in the third quarter of this year.
“There will be a separate design and build tender floated in the third quarter of this year for the floating marina, which will include an interactive experience centre for marine biology in the Red Sea,” sources close to the project told MEED.
Spanish consultant Ricardo Bofill Taller de Arquitectura is the design consultant, and US-based Aecom is the project management consultant.
The development of Shusha Island is part of a framework for constructing infrastructure for 12 new islands at Neom.
MEED exclusively reported in August that Neom had briefed contractors on its development plan for Shusha Island. Several local and international contractors attended the meeting.
In October, Neom appointed Greek contractor Archirodon to carry out the early infrastructure works and local contractor Source Machinery for the enabling works on Shusha island.
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Looking beyond the top line, the most notable trend of the year is the outsized success of India’s Larsen & Toubro (L&T) in securing many of the largest recent schemes in Saudi Arabia and Qatar.
Chinese contractors have also made steady progress in increasing their market share. Some industry stalwarts, by contrast, have seen considerably less success.
While some of this can be attributed to the cyclical nature of tendering and more selective bidding by established players with already large order books, MEED’s ranking of total execution values bears out the broader trends.

L&T’s dramatic surge
The most dramatic shift in the EPC landscape over the past 12 months (Q4 2024-Q3 2025) has been a $12.7bn surge in awards secured by L&T. This rapid expansion of its value of work under execution to $25.4bn has brought the company to within one place of the top of MEED’s EPC contractor rankings – falling just shy of the $26.9bn currently being executed by Italy’s Saipem.
L&T’s recent successes include the March win of the $4bn combined package 4A and 4B (Comp4) of QatarEnergy LNG’s North Field Production Sustainability programme – the largest project awarded during the period. L&T also won the $2.5bn fifth natural gas liquids train (NGL-5) project from QatarEnergy, and four separate contracts worth more than $1bn each with Saudi Aramco.
These wins built on an already burgeoning order book – one that also includes the $3.6bn phase 2: package 1 of the Jafurah gas treatment facility, awarded by Aramco in September 2023.
L&T’s rise has also been helped by relative inactivity among other top firms. Both Saipem and Italy’s Maire Tecnimont achieved prominent ranking positions a year earlier after securing, respectively, the $8.2bn offshore and $8.7bn onshore packages of Adnoc’s Hail and Ghasha programme in October 2023. Those awards, together with other contracts, saw the two Italian firms secure roughly $12bn in awards each in a single 12‑month stretch, catapulting them up the ranking.
However, neither company has added significantly to their pools of work over the past 12 months, in sharp contrast with L&T, which has seized momentum in the regional contracting landscape. So far, L&T has displaced Maire Tecnimont to reach second place regionally; another year of even marginally comparable momentum should put it at the top.
Also notable is the gap between L&T’s total awards over the past 12 months and those of its nearest competitors. L&T’s $12.7bn in wins rivals the combined value of the next three largest EPC contractors. As a share of an estimated $70bn in total awards across the sector over the same period, L&T secured about 18% of the work.The previous year, Saipem and Maire Tecnimont each secured closer to 12% of awards. This underlines L&T’s considerable momentum both in terms of its order book and market share growth.
Chinese push
Two other significant winners over the past 12 months are China Petroleum Engineering & Construction Corporation (CPECC) and China Offshore Oil Engineering Company (COOEC), which secured $5bn and $4.3bn-worth of awards, respectively.
These contracts wins have moved the two Chinese firms up into the top 20 EPC contractors. CPECC’s success is largely attributable to the niche it has developed in Iraq and Algeria, where about $4.4bn of its awards were won – led by a $1.6bn contract to deliver the central gas complex for Basra Oil Company’s Artawi development.
COOEC’s recent wins have been concentrated in the GCC, specifically on phases one and two of QatarEnergy’s Bul Hanine offshore oil field expansion, which are worth a combined $4bn.
The US’ McDermott and Spain’s Tecnicas Reunidas – two long-term regional players – recorded the next strongest order-book additions, securing about $3.8bn and $3.4bn, respectively. McDermott’s new work includes the $2bn phase two of Adnoc Offshore’s Umm Shaif long‑term development plan and a $1.8bn contract to lay offshore pipelines and subsea power cables for QatarEnergy LNG’s North Field South programme.
The next five biggest bookers over the period were South Korea’s Samsung C&T and Samsung E&A, the UAE’s Lamprell and Target Engineering, and Qatar’s Doha Petroleum Construction Company (DOPET) – each securing more than $2bn.
Samsung C&T’s top award was for QatarEnergy’s $2.5bn carbon sequestration complex; Samsung E&A’s was for Taziz Chemicals’ $1.7bn methanol plant in phase one of its industrial chemicals zone.
Lamprell secured five separate contracts from Saudi Aramco, the largest a $1.5bn award for offshore infrastructure on the Zuluf development.
Target secured three UAE contracts, led by a $1.5bn award from Adnoc Offshore for phase five of its Das Island terminal facilities (part of the Lower Zakum long‑term development).
DOPET secured two contracts from QatarEnergy, led by a $2bn award for phase three of the Bul Hanine offshore oil field expansion.
Across the activity, it remains conspicuous how rapidly values fall away from the top winners and how concentrated the recent awards are with L&T. While the contraction in total award value may partly explain this dynamic, the broader trend is clear: the concentration of work with L&T makes it the company to watch in regional bidding rounds in the year ahead.
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Chinese firm signs deal for Algerian steel project24 November 2025
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Wafra Joint Operations seeks more participation for upstream tender24 November 2025

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