KAEC to hand over plots

King Abdullah Economic City (KAEC) will start handing over the single family residential plots in Phase Three of the Al Talah Gardens district following completion of the infrastructure work at the development.

Al Talah Gardens is being developed in five phases. phases One and Two have been handed over already and phases Four and Five are nearing completion and will be ready before the contractual handover dates. Spread over 613,300 sq m, Al Talah Gardens Phase Three comprises 692 residential single family plots. It was designed by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill in cooperation with Buro Happold Engineering and Moriyama & Teshima Architects.

Petromin to build logistics centre

Petromin, the Saudi lubricants giant and the official Nissan Motors dealer in the kingdom, will build a major logistics service centre for Nissan vehicles in King Abdullah Economic City (KAEC), just north of Jeddah.

According to the deal, Petromin will lease 193,917 sq m of land in the Industrial Valley of KAEC to build the logistics service centre.

Petromin is one of the kingdom’s leading producers of automotive lubricants and automotive service providers.

$266m projects under way

The Saudi government is working on infrastructure development projects worth nearly SR1 billion ($266 million) in Thadiq and Huraymila areas in the Riyadh governorate, said a report.

The projects in Thadiq are worth SR590 million ($152 million), while those in Huraymila are estimated at around SR370 million ($98 million), reported the Arab News, citing Riyadh Governor Prince Faisal bin Bandar.

Prince Faisal was inspecting the progress of the projects, which include health, municipal, educational, housing, electricity, water and social services, stated the report

Samsung plant deal terminated

The Saudi government has terminated a contract awarded to South Korea’s Samsung Engineering for building a 3,100-MW power and desalination plant on the Red Sea coast in the industrial city of Yanbu,  due to differences over the final construction terms, said a report.

The engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contract for the $3-billion project was awarded by state-owned Saline Water Conversion Corporation to a consortium led by the Korean company in 2012, reported Pulse News.

Samsung was the main contractor for the power plant, commanding half, or $1.5 billion, in lump-sum contract value, it stated.

About 55 per cent of the construction has been completed, said the report, citing a source.

The contract was initially due to be completed by December 28 last year, but pushed back to August 25 next year upon agreement, it added.

Court drops crane crash case

A Saudi criminal court has declared that it was dropping the case related to the 2015 Makkah crane crash, which claimed 110 lives and injured over 200 pilgrims, due to the lack of jurisdiction over the case.

The Makkah Criminal Court issued its ruling in the presence of the defendants on trial and the prosecutor; it came after several sessions of deliberations.

The prosecutor had interrogated the defendants before the judge decided to drop the case against the Binladin group due to an issue of jurisdiction, the Arab News reported.

The court informed the defence team that it will inform them later of the date the legal decision will be formally issued, stated the report.

Reports presented by the Binladin Group during the investigation and court sessions had shown that sudden changes in weather conditions, difficult to forecast, resulted in unusual winds, which in turn caused the collapse of the crane.

Plan to boost energy efficiency

Saudi Arabia is working on a wide range of activities to help boost its energy efficiency under its new ‘green economy’ programme.

Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman bin Abdulaziz, Deputy Minister of Petroleum and Mineral Resources and chairman of the executive committee of Saudi Center for Energy Efficiency, said the programme is timely as the building sectors, ground transportation and industry account for 90 per cent of the total energy consumption in the kingdom.

Speaking at the Saudi Forum for Water and Electricity in Riyadh, he said domestic energy consumption constituted 38 per cent of the kingdom’s total production of petroleum and gas.

Jeddah boosts transport network

Saudi Arabia has launched three major transportation projects in the port city of Jeddah.

The projects include the construction of a new bridge, a tram line in the north of the city and a marine taxi service, according to reports.

The proposed Obhur Bridge will link north and south Obhur while the Corniche Tram will run parallel to the city’s North Corniche Road. The marine taxi will link Sharm Obhur with central and northern Jeddah. The projects will be completed through joint private and public sector funding, and preparatory work has already begun.

Work started on 280,000 homes

The Saudi government has started work on an ambitious housing programme which will see the construction of 280,000 residential units at an investment of SR119.5 billion ($32 billion) over the next three years, said a report.

As part of the programme, 120,000 housing units of various sizes in various regions of the kingdom will be given to citizens depending on income level and the number of family members, reported the Saudi Gazette, citing the Ministry of Housing officials.

A total of 75,000 residential plots of land in several cities ready for construction will also be handed over to citizens, stated the report.

Milestone ... officials at the launch of the turbine.

First wind turbine makes its debut

State-run Saudi Aramco has commissioned the kingdom’s first wind energy turbine, developed in partnership with GE and aimed at supporting the renewable goals of the Vision 2030 initiative.

The project will power Saudi Aramco’s facility in Turaif, providing electricity directly to the bulk plant.One Saudi Aramco-GE wind turbine creates enough power to supply 250 homes, can displace 19,000 barrels of oil equivalent, and generate 2.75 MW. 

The wind turbine is connected to Turaif bulk plant’s electrical distribution system to help it reduce the amount of power purchased from the Saudi Electricity Company (SEC) and to reduce the diesel currently consumed to supply power at the plant.

Saudi Arabia is targeting 3.45 GW of renewable energy by 2020 and 9.5 GW by 2023.