Saudi Arabia announces King Salman Stadium in Riyadh
29 July 2024
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Saudi Arabia's Sport Ministry and the Royal Commission of Riyadh City (RCRC) have announced plans to build a new stadium in the north of Riyadh, next to King Abdulaziz Park.
The new stadium will be known as King Salman Stadium and will serve as the Saudi national football team's main headquarters.
In an official statement released by the Saudi Press Agency, the clients said that they have approved the design for the new stadium and its associated sporting facilities.
The stadium will cover an area of about 660,000 square meters (sq m). It will have a seating capacity of 92,000 spectators.
The stadium will feature a 150-seat royal suite, 120 hospitality suites, 300 VIP seats and 2,200 dignitary seats.
The plan also includes several sports facilities covering more than 360,000 sq m, which include two training fields and fan zones, a closed sports hall, an Olympic-sized swimming pool, an athletics track and outdoor courts for volleyball, basketball and padel tennis.
The construction of the stadium is expected to be completed by 2029.
The stadium is located next to the newly announced King Abdulaziz Park.
Earlier in July, MEED reported that RCRC had announced the start of construction works for King Abdulaziz Park, part of the Green Riyadh programme.
The park will cover an area of over 4.3 million sq m. The construction works are expected to be completed within three years.
According to an official statement, the centre of the park will feature a botanical garden that covers more than 200,000 sq m and hosts over 200 species of local plants.
The Munsiyah tributary, a branch of Al-Sulai Valley, will also run through the park, with a total length of over 11 kilometres covering more than 770,000 sq m within the botanical garden.
King Abdulaziz Park is located in the north of Riyadh, close to King Khalid International airport and Princess Nourah Bint Abdulrahman University.
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Neom hydrogen project reaches 60% completion rate
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Construction work on the $8.4bn Neom green hydrogen project in Saudi Arabia has reached a 60% completion rate.
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Photo credit: NGHC
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Algeria cancels $1.3bn refinery contract and makes new award
6 December 2024
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Algerian state energy producer Sonatrach has cancelled its $1.3bn contract with South Korea’s Samsung Engineering for the planned $3.7bn Hassi Messaoud refinery project in Algeria, and replaced it with China’s Sinopec.
Samsung Engineering confirmed the contract’s cancellation on 28 November without specifying the reason.
Sonatrach officially signed the main contract award for the Hassi Messaoud refinery with the consortium of Samsung Engineering and Tecnicas Reunidas in January 2020.
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In July this year, the vice-president of refining and petrochemicals at Sonatrach, Slimane Slimani, said that his company aimed to bring the facility online before the end of 2027.
Industry sources say this target will be difficult to achieve given the extensive delays and disruption that the project has suffered.
Speaking on Radio Algerienne Chaine 3 in July, Slimani said that Sonatrach had officially revived the project, and its execution was aligned with the company’s broader strategy for the country’s downstream sector.
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When Sonatrach first announced the project, it was part of Algeria’s $14bn strategic downstream capacity expansion programme, which included the construction of five new refineries.
Under the terms of the original contracts signed in 2020, contractors were required to execute the works on a lump-sum turn-key basis.
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