Recently, under the scorching sun along the Red Sea coast, a bid document for the Saudi Arabia Asir to Gizan highway worth approximately $5 billion is being polished page by page in the conference rooms of the three major multinational corporations. The bidding deadline originally scheduled for March has been extended by the owner to May 31st, leaving a final sprint window for this super bidding that affects global infrastructure giants.

Three consortia enter the final showdown

After multiple rounds of pre qualification screening, the number of bidders remaining on the table has been reduced to three multinational consortia. Shaanxi Construction Group has formed a consortium with two local Saudi companies, Safari and Lamar Holding; Türkiye Makyol led the fight with two local partners; China Harbour has formed a strong partnership with local capital Vision Invest. The IC Ictas consortium of Türkiye and Samsung C&T of South Korea, which had passed the preliminary examination before, have withdrawn from the competition.

Crossing mountains and seas requires conquering natural dangers

This 136 kilometer two-way six lane highway is not an ordinary project. Six interchanges need to be built along the route, 57 bridges with a total length of 18 kilometers need to be erected, and 11 tunnels with a length of 9 kilometers need to be excavated. The construction difficulty is second to none in southwestern Saudi Arabia. The project adopts the DBFOM model, and the winning bidder will be responsible for the entire chain of design, construction, financing, operation, and maintenance, with a contract period of up to 30 years. Middle East news and information, highway infrastructure

PPP model reshapes Saudi Arabia's infrastructure

This project is a core component of Saudi Arabia's national privatization strategy, and together with three other highways, it forms the highlight of the PPP project library. The government withdraws from construction and operation, and social capital bears the full cycle risk, which is expected to attract billions of dollars in international investment into Saudi Arabia's transportation infrastructure sector every year. During the contract period, the winning consortium will be responsible for charging operations and daily maintenance, achieving risk sharing and benefit sharing. As the global infrastructure giants enter the countdown to compete for this super contract, the reshaping of Saudi Arabia's transportation landscape is imminent.Editor/Gao Xue