As the Line gigaproject continues to grow in the Saudi desert, some new construction details have been announced that highlight the mind-boggling challenge of turning a huge tract of rugged landscape into a futuristic megacity, including its reported use of one fifth of the entire world's currently available steel.
To recap, the Line is the key part of Saudi Arabia's Neom project, which is itself part of a larger push to transform the country's predominantly oil-based economy into a tourism-focused one as fossil fuel use is inevitably reduced in the coming years.
The plan is for the Line to eventually have a length of 170 km (105 miles), though its initial stage, which will be finished by 2030, will be "just" 2.4 km (1.5 miles). This will still be an amazing achievement, however, and it will reach a height of 500 m (1,640 ft), with a width of 200 m (656 ft). It will be wrapped in a mirrored exterior and host an air-conditioned city of around 300,000 people with AI tech and heavy surveillance to keep an eye on how everything is running – from garbage collection to water usage.
To help make all this happen, Saudi Arabian authorities have now commissioned a new SAR 700-million (almost US$190-million) concrete multi-plant factory that will be capable of producing up to 20,000 cubic meters (roughly 700,000 cubic ft) of concrete per day, most of which will be for the Line, with the remainder going to other Neom projects. There are also over 100,000 workers busy removing huge amounts of earth 24 hours a day, seven days a week, to make space for its massive foundations.
Work on the foundation piles is also progressing, with nearly 1,000 out of over 30,000 piles placed so far. Additionally, according to multiple sources, including the Arabian Gulf Business Insight, Neom's chief investment officer, Manar Al Moneef, said during the recent Saudi Global Logistics Forum that the project is currently using one fifth of all the steel currently produced in the world, which is an incredible statistic. Indeed, Neom's creators expect the project to continue to be the world's largest customer of building materials for decades.
The news follows a recent pledge by Neom's organizers to be more transparent with the build process, in order to put nervous investors' minds at ease and raise some additional funds. Alongside the headline-grabbing Line, other high-profile Neom projects that are currently underway in Saudi Arabia include Treyam, Epicon, and Xaynor.
While we await the next progress update, the video below shows the state of play earlier this year.
Source: Neom
