Like the US business magazine Bloomberg Reportedly, the Saudi monarchs are said to have secretly evaporated the project. Riyadh is now assuming that it will be able to build just 2.4 kilometers of the “Line” by 2030 and accommodate a maximum of 300,000 people, reports an anonymous, high-ranking employee. Both figures are still “estimated optimistically,” it is said.
Estimated costs tripled after just one year
One expected reason for this is that the dream of a future city simply became too expensive. The royal family originally estimated the cost of the entire project – all three parts of the city including the world’s largest hydrogen power plant and a bridge over the Red Sea – at 500 billion US dollars. Now, just a year after construction work began, the figure is now estimated to be three times that amount.
The overwhelming majority of the costs are Saudi sovereign wealth funds (Public Investmend Fund), whose cash reserves are currently said to have melted to around $15 billion – the lowest level since the start of the corona pandemic in 2020. The background to the move is likely to have been the budget negotiations for 2024.
What does this mean for the World Cup and the World Exhibition?
Basically, “The Line” should be built as planned, just much more slowly. But the delay in the project could damage the reputation of the Saudi crown prince Mohammed bin Salman (MbS for short) become. The royal family is well aware that the source of Saudi wealth, the country’s vast oil and gas reserves, will run dry this century at current levels of consumption.
The 38-year-old MbS, who is caring for his seriously ill father, King Salmanwhich runs businesses, presented the “Vision 2030“Program: A lot of infrastructure projects that are intended to prepare the kingdom economically for a future without natural resources. Part of this vision also includes bringing major events to the country in order to boost tourism – this has been successful: Saudi Arabia, among others, was awarded the contract for the World Expo 2030 and the Men’s World Cup 2034.
However, the prestige project of Vision 2030 was always NEOM. As a kind of dress rehearsal for larger events Triple, the artificial ski resort being built at one end of the “Line” inland, will host the 2029 Asian Winter Games. It is questionable whether the royal family can impress the world as hoped with this event now that the NEOM plans have been scaled back so much – the same applies to later major events.
Concrete consequences are already being felt as a result of the delay: an international construction company has already pulled thousands of workers off the line. The Saudi government doesn’t want to confirm this, but it does Bloomberg received credible documents confirming this.
After all, the royal family promises to have other NEOM districts completed by 2030. The island Sindalah in the Red Sea, for example, which is intended to serve as a luxury tourism destination immediately before one end of the “Line”, is scheduled to open this year. At least if nothing else comes up.