NEOM is without a shadow of a doubt one of the maxi-engineering projects most discussed in recent years. It will arise in Saudi Arabia and involves the construction of enormous works throughout the country, such as The Line – the 170 km long linear city in the middle of the desert – or Oxagon City, a totally floating industrial centre. This is an extremely ambitious plan… perhaps even too ambitious. If, initially, the government was rather optimistic about the actual realization of the various works, to date it seems that the Saudi crown prince And president by NEOM Mohammed bin Salman decided to change course and downsize everything. But what are the reasons behind this choice?
First there is a big problem in terms of delays and, consequently, of costswhich according to some international newspapers – such as EuroNews – would have passed by 500 billion dollars beyond 9 trillion. But it’s not over: to make the situation worse there is also the price of barrels of oil which, in recent months, has fallen due to the tariff policies adopted by the USA. Specifically, this caused a reduction from beyond 80 dollars a barrel of last year at values that are around 60 dollars. And how easy it is to understand all this, for a country that lives on export oilit’s a huge problem.
Precisely for this reason Tim Callen, researcher at the think tank Arab Gulf States Institute of Washington, told Business Insider that the kingdom will necessarily have to “increase revenue from non-oil sources or cut expenses“. He further added that his feeling is that of a “reduction of plans, with the cancellation of some less priority projects and the implementation of others over a longer period“.
Confirming this change of direction by the prince there would also be the indefinite postponement of the Asian Winter Gamesinitially scheduled for 2029, as X’s post below explains.
But how? Winter Games in Saudi Arabia? Yes, because Trojena, a ski resort open all year round, was also initially planned within NEOM. Now, therefore, the location is vacant and moving the venue of the sporting event to China or in Korea South.
So what will happen to the NEOM projects? At the moment we don’t know for sure. The little information circulating online is mainly about The Line which, according to initial rumors, will be shortened from 170 km just 2.4 km, including the stadium which, in 2034, should host the football World Cup.
