More than 80 megaprojects, each worth at least $1 billion, are under way or planned for completion by 2030 in Saudi Arabia, according to a new report.

This makes the kingdom the Middle East’s largest megaproject market by a wide margin, said the Meed report released during the third annual Meed Saudi Mega Transport & Infrastructure Projects conference.

The 2014 event opened at the Al Faisaliah Hotel in Riyadh today with a keynote address delivered by Saudi Arabia’s Minister of Economy and Planning Dr Muhammad Al Jasser.

Leading project management firms are focusing growing attention on the opportunities emerging in the megaprojects market of Saudi Arabia.

Speakers at the event are expected to highlight the opportunities emerging in the kingdom’s large-scale projects market. They include Saudi Aramco’s plan to invest $40 billion a year over the next decade to keep oil production capacity steady and double gas production. The $20-billion Riyadh Metro is another major project under implementation. Further major metro projects are planned for Makkah and Jeddah.

“The conference will concentrate on finding solutions to the megaproject challenge the kingdom faces,” said Meed Event’s chairman Edmund O’Sullivan, who is  moderating the event.

“The resurgence of large scale and complex projects and programmes being developed in the GCC region continues to present delivery challenges to the megaproject industry,” said CH2M Hill Saudi Arabia country manager Amer Khan.

“Part of the overall holistic solution is to implement tailored programme management methodologies for mega project delivery with strategic level integrated teams comprising project owners, sponsors and world class delivery professionals.”

“The Saudi Arabian megaproject market is an exciting, challenging and rapidly growing entity,” said Faithful & Gould regional development director David Clifton. “To ensure successful delivery, we need to ensure global best practice, procedures and systems are both brought and then tailored to the market and implanted. Further, with the rapid rise of major programmes, we need to develop intelligent procurement as the supply stretches and capacity is taken up by multiple mega programs running concurrently.”

Technology will play a critical role in the implementation of these projects.

“The construction industry which includes design, engineering and construction has been plagued by flat and declining productivity, low growth and constant complaints about margin compression,” said global head of programme management at Arcadis Julio Maggi.

“There has been very little innovation. We really don’t’ design things any better, faster or cheaper than we have done in the past. So we are no delivering value to the client that you see happening in the microchip industry for example.”

“There needs to be more innovation and a wider embrace of the technologies that are emerging including robotics, 3-D printing and driverless vehicles. A wider adoption of BIM would be beneficial, particularly in large infrastructure programmes. Saudi Arabia has a vision for 2025,” Maggi said.

The importance of information management and full lifecycle BIM on megaprojects will the subject of a special breakfast briefing at the conference on September 17, hosted by Bentley Systems. - TradeArabia News Service