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  LIVE WEBINAR: Mena Hydrocarbon & Power Projects Market

  5 July 2024

  Register now

  Agenda:

  • Summary of historical hydrocarbon and power projects sectors performance
  • Summary of market performance 2024 year-to-date plus outlook for 2025 and beyond
  • Evaluation of key awarded and future projects
  • Breakdown of performance by subsector and country
  • The main drivers
  • The top clients and contractors
  • Construction output long-term forecast
  • Analysis of momentum index
  • Market risk assessment
  • Q&A session

  Time: Tuesday 23 July at 2:00 PM GST

  Hosted by: Edward James, head of content and analysis at MEED

  A well-known and respected thought leader in Mena affairs, Edward James has been with MEED for more than 19 years, working as a researcher, consultant and content director. Today he heads up all content and research produced by the MEED group. His specific areas of expertise are construction, hydrocarbons, power and water, and the petrochemical market. He is considered one of the world’s foremost experts on the Mena projects market. 

  Click here to register

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  MEED Editorial
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  Maghreb construction sector brightens

  5 July 2024

  

   

  The Maghreb remains an active market for construction companies, with $22.1bn of construction and transport projects at the execution stage in the region, excluding major rail schemes, according to regional projects tracker MEED Projects.

  Algeria and Morocco are the two most active markets, with $9.6bn and $8.9bn of projects under execution, respectively. The Tunisia and Libya construction markets are much smaller, with $2.3bn and $1.7bn under execution.

  At the same time, the value of new project awards has been subdued of late, with only about $2.9bn-worth of major construction and transport contracts awarded over the past two years across the four countries outside the rail sector.

  During that period, the Maghreb region has only had two significant contract awards with a value exceeding $400m.

  The largest was an $800m contract to build the Tunis governorate’s La Perle du Lac 2 smart city. The project is being undertaken by a joint venture of Societe Bouzguenda Freres and Bonna Tunisie, and is being developed by Tunisian investment firm Al-Buhaira Invest.

  The other scheme was the $440m expansion of the Ibn Batouta stadium in Morocco, for which Moroccan contractor Entreprise Moussadak Bouchta secured the contract.

  Moroccan optimism

  With few significant projects awarded over the past two years, construction companies are eagerly looking to the horizon for future opportunities. Morocco’s hosting of the 2030 World Cup should certainly help its prospects in the mid-term.

  In March 2023, King Mohammed VI announced Morocco’s plans to join Spain and Portugal’s bid to host the 2030 tournament, and in September 2023, the bid went through uncontested.

  To facilitate hosting the event, Morocco plans to build a 93,000-seat stadium in Casablanca and upgrade at least five existing stadiums.

  In March, Morocco appointed the US-based architectural firm Populous and French Oualalou + Choi to design the Casablanca stadium. The state-owned fund Caisse de Depot et de Gestion has signed a deal worth around $500m to finance the stadium’s construction.

  Construction work is expected to begin in 2025, and the stadium is anticipated to be ready by 2028.

  The five stadiums to be upgraded are the Prince Moulay Abdallah stadium in Rabat, the Ibn Battuta stadium in Tangier, and stadiums in Fez, Agadir and Marrakesh. A stadium in Tetouan may also be upgraded.

  In May, Morocco kicked off work on its Mohammed VI International University Hospital in Rabat. Bymaro, the Moroccan subsidiary of French construction firm Bouygues Construction, announced that it had been awarded the €450m ($487m) main contract to build the hospital.

  The scope of the contract covers the construction of four six-storey buildings and a 25-storey tower over an area of about 275,000 square metres.

  Algerian spending

  In December last year, Algeria revealed its Finance Bill 2024, which outlined increasing capital expenditure by 19% to AD2.9tn ($20.8bn).

  Of the total, AD848bn ($6.1bn) was allocated to the health sector and AD313.5bn ($2.3bn) was budgeted to construct around 460,000 housing units.

  The construction sector’s future pipeline comprises significant projects, including Dunia Park – a theme park planned by the UAE’s Emaar with a multibillion-dollar budget – the $650m Economic Capital City scheme and the $250m Blida Hospital.

  Algeria approved the construction of a new university hospital centre in Tizi-Ouzou in June. President Abdelmadjid Tebboune approved the project during a cabinet meeting the previous week.

  The project falls under the housing ministry, through the representation of the Public Equipment Directorate of Tizi-Ouzou Province, which has awarded the local contractor Cosider Group the main contract to build the hospital.

  Further opportunities

  There are also some upcoming opportunities in Libya and Tunisia.

  For Libya, there were indications in 2023 that the country could soon begin to put its decade-long conflict behind it, but progress on this and a project market revival has been unsteady.

  Looking forward, the big upcoming piece of work is the $2.4bn Lot 4 of the Emsaed Rasejdeer Motorway programme, which is under bid evaluation. The lot’s three packages are set to be awarded in August. The scheme’s $1.2bn Lot 2 and $2.1bn Lot 3 are also under study.

  Among Tunisia’s upcoming schemes are plans to award a $150m contract to construct hospitals in the Ghardimaou, Makhtar, Jelma and Haffouz areas. The prequalification for this project was completed in October last year, and the main contract tender is now awaiting issuance.

  The country is also prequalifying contractors for the development of the $85m King Salman Ben Abdelaziz University Hospital in Kairouan after Saudi Arabia agreed to provide funding for the project in February. Construction work on the scheme is slated to begin in the second half of 2024.

  On the slightly more distant horizon, two highway expansion schemes worth a combined $550m are currently being studied in Tunisia and are expected to be awarded in 2026.

  Across the region, recent project activity in the construction and transport sector outside of rail has been disappointing in the past two years, but schemes financed by both the public and private sectors are now progressing through pre-execution in a way that promises better things to come.

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  Yasir Iqbal
• 
  Maghreb rail sector heads for boom

  5 July 2024

  

   

  The Maghreb region is headed for a potential surge in railway scheme development, with upcoming projects worth tens of billions of dollars in pre-execution and set to swell the $7.6bn of rail schemes currently at the execution stage, according to regional projects tracker MEED Projects.

  There are $18.5bn-worth of rail projects in prequalification or bid in Algeria and Morocco right now, led by an $11.2bn expansion of Morocco’s high-speed railway network.

  Building on a $2.4bn stretch of high-speed rail between Tangier and Casablanca that was delivered in 2018, the expansion plans include a further $4.5bn-worth of line development between Kenitra and Marrakech and a $5.6bn line across the more mountainous terrain from Marrakech to Agadir.

  Morocco’s rail prospects are also being boosted by the revival of the Spain-Morocco tunnel project.

  In June 2023, the Spanish government revived plans for a Morocco-to-Spain undersea rail link project after allocating about $2.5m for a renewed design study. The project was first launched in 2003 but was put on hold after the 2008 financial crisis. It has undergone several rounds of feasibility studies but remains in the study stage after nearly two decades of funding-linked delays.

  The plans involve a double-rail track with an additional service line stretching 38.5 kilometres (km) from Tarifa in Spain to Tangier in Morocco. The technically challenging scheme involves a 28km section running under the Mediterranean Sea at a maximum depth of 475 metres below sea level.

  This is significantly deeper than the comparable Channel Tunnel between the UK and France, which at its deepest lies only 75 metres below the seabed and 115 metres below sea level.

  In Algeria, there is meanwhile upwards of $5bn-worth of work in prequalification as part of the National Railway Programme being pursued by the country’s rail authority Anesrif, including a multibillion-dollar planned rail line to connect Oran on the northwest coast to the Algeria-Mali border.

  There is also a significant volume of work in the design and study phases, including a $10bn electrification scheme announced by Algeria and due for prequalification in 2025 and award in early 2026 – a clear sign that Algiers is committed to delivering a modern public transport network.

  Other planned rail modernisation and expansion schemes in the region include the Mohammadia-Mascara railway line in Algeria, the extension of Rabat-Sale light rail in Morocco and the extension of the Sfax light rail in Tunisia.

  Ongoing projects

  In terms of projects already under execution, the rail activity in the region is currently being led almost entirely by $7.4bn-worth of work Algeria. Many of the existing rail projects are long-standing ones, however, with the average duration of ongoing projects exceeding four-and-a-half years.

  The value of new project awards in the rail sector in recent years has been subdued. In the past two years, there have been just $1.2bn of rail awards across the four countries of the Maghreb region.

  The largest ongoing projects in Algeria are the Oued Tlelat-Akid Abbes railway line upgrade, the Tlemcen-Akid Abbes railway and the Tebessa-Ain M'lila railway line – the combined value of which is about $3.5bn.

  In April, Anesrif also restarted the Relizane-Tiaret-Tissemsilt component of its $1.9bn East-West rail network expansion after a pause of several years and a change of contractors.

  The contract with the previous group of contractors, which included Spain’s Fomento de Construcciones y Contratas (FCC) and local company Groupe ETRHB Haddad, was terminated.

  In June, the client awarded a new $231m contract for lots one and two of the project to a consortium of local contractors, including EPTP Alger, GCB, Infrafer and Societe Algerienne des Ponts et Travaux d’Art.

  Lot one includes works on the Relizane, Tiaret, Tissemsilt and Saida/Tiaret sections, spanning 10km. The remaining works are expected to be completed in 10 months. Lot two includes works on the Tiaret and Tissemsilt section, covering 63.5km, and will be due within 20 months.

  Another major rail project under way in Algeria is the project to connect the Gara Djebilet iron ore mine in Western Algeria’s Tindouf province with the national rail network at Bechar.

  In January, Algeria selected a team of Beijing-headquartered China Railway Construction Corporation and local contractor Cosider Travaux Publics for a contract to build a 575km railway line. The precise value of the project is unknown, but it could be worth $900m-$1.2bn.

  In Tunisia, railway projects worth over $227m are in the execution phase. The biggest railway schemes under way include lots one and five of the country’s Rapid Rail Network. Morocco and Libya do not have any major railway schemes under execution, according to MEED Projects.

  In general, with few significant projects awarded in the past two years, construction companies and rail sector suppliers will be eagerly awaiting the upcoming opportunities in the region.

  If even a modest share of the large volume of work planned in Algeria and Morocco comes to fruition, contractors in the rail sector in the region could experience a boom.

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  Yasir Iqbal
• 
  Saudi-Dutch JV seeks contractors for metals reclamation project

  5 July 2024

  Saudi Arabia’s Advanced Circular Materials Company (ACMC), a joint venture between The Netherlands-based Shell & AMG Recycling BV (SARBV) and local firm United Company for Industry (UCI), has solicited interest from contractors to build a metals reclamation facility in the kingdom.

  ACMC has approached local and international contractors to submit prequalification documents for the engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) works on the planned project by 21 July.

  Front-end engineering and design work on the project is in its “conclusion phase”, SARBV, the lead partner in the project, said in a statement. The facility is scheduled to enter commercial operations by the end of 2026.

  SARBV first announced its intention to build a metal reclamation and catalyst manufacturing facility in Saudi Arabia in November 2019. The kingdom’s Ministry of Investment, then known as the Saudi Arabian General Investment Authority (Sagia), supported the project.

  In July 2022, SARBV and UCI signed an agreement to formalise their joint venture and build the proposed facility in PlasChem Park in Jubail Industrial City, in Saudi Arabia’s Eastern Province.

  The project has received support from Saudi Aramco’s Namaat industrial investment programme. Aramco, at the time, also signed an agreement with the joint venture to offtake vanadium-bearing gasification ash from the Jazan refining complex, to be produced as part of the first phase of the project.

  Metals recycling facility

  ACMC has divided the project in four phases. Phase 1 will process gasification ash generated by the Jazan refining complex to produce battery-grade vanadium oxide and vanadium electrolyte for vanadium redox flow batteries. AMG will provide the licensed technology required for the production process.

  At nominal capacity, the first phase of the project will process 7,000 metric tonnes year of vanadium concentrate. ACMC has allocated a budget of $200m approximately for this phase.

  Phase 2 would expand the facility to process spent catalyst from heavy oil upgrading facilities to produce ferrovanadium for the steel industry and/or additional battery grade vanadium oxide.

  Phase 3 involves the installation of a manufacturing facility for residue upgrading catalysts.

  In the fourth phase, a vanadium electrolyte production plant is to be developed.

  The developers expect total carbon dioxide emissions reduction of 3.6 million metric tonnes a year when the four phases of the project are commissioned.

  Photo credit: SARBV

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  Indrajit Sen
• 
  Alkhorayef wins regional water pipeline deals

  5 July 2024

  Saudi Arabia's National Water Company (NWC) has awarded local firm Alkhorayef Water and Power Technologies Company contracts to install new water and wastewater connections across six regions in Saudi Arabia.

  The 36-month contracts, described as blanket purchase agreements, are worth SR190.8m ($50.8m), the Saudi-listed company said in a filing.

  The water and wastewater connections will be located in Al-Qassim, Hail, Jizan and in the north, south and central sectors of the kingdom's Eastern Region.

  Alkhorayef won three of the eight packages that NWC tendered under the first phase of its long-term operation and maintenance (LTOM) programme, as MEED reported.

  The three contracts have a total combined capacity of 2.04 million cm/d, nearly half the awarded total. These three contracts are worth more than SR5.53bn ($1.47bn).

  NWC provides water distribution, sewerage collection and wastewater treatment services throughout Saudi Arabia.

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  Jennifer Aguinaldo