Located on the Red Sea, Port of Neom has undergone a significant transformation since it began operations in August of 2022. Situated within Oxagon, a sustainable, futuristic, high-tech industrial port city as part of Saudi Arabia's Neom mega-trillion-plus-dollar region, the port will act as a central hub for not only shipping and receiving for the region but also as an advanced global manufacturing and information technology hub.
It's expected to handle 12 million TEUs (twenty-foot equivalent units) when completed. For reference, the Port of Los Angeles, known as America's Port, is the busiest container port in the US, handling just over 9 TEUs annually.
To make this happen, the port's access channels have been dredged using a zero-discharge dredging technique to minimize environmental impact. Rather than simply dredging the sea floor and dumping the soil back into the ocean elsewhere, all materials are reused for land reclamation or infrastructure projects. When the project began, the access channel was roughly 590 ft (180 m) wide and 39-46 ft (12-14 m) deep. Today, the channel is 1,805 ft (550 m) wide and 62 ft (19 m) deep, allowing for more and larger vessel access.
To handle such a vast amount of cargo, the city of Oxagon will feature AI-driven automation and autonomous vehicles to optimize logistics, including an on-dock railway system that integrates seamlessly with Neom's greater transportation network.
The goal is to attain "gold" status on a Sustainability Index on not only the buildings of the port but also on the infrastructure of the port. Project engineers have even gone so far as to relocate coral in an effort to minimize environmental impact. 100% of all demolition waste has been recycled. There are several certifications that use Gold as a standard – LEED, Envision, BREEAM, Green Port Certification, et cetera – and while which Sustainability Index is not specified, Gold ranks highest to second highest on most indexes for being highy sustainable, energy-efficient, and environmentally responsible.
The city of Oxagon itself is intended to serve as a hub for clean energy manufacturing and information technology. At 18.5 square miles (48 sq km), Oxagon is about half the size of San Francisco, yet it aims to produce as much as 600 tonnes of carbon-free hydrogen fuel every day by 2026. The development is also in talks with top Chinese solar and wind turbine manufacturers to establish large-scale production from within the city.
DavaVolt, a technology company, has already signed an initial investment of US$5 billion to build a 1.5GW net-zero AI data center, with Phase 1 expected to be online by 2028. Also underway is a 3.9 square mile (10 sq km) floating structure, designed to minimize coastline sprawl and to utilize deep water technologies.
"We're able to offer renewable energy sources, seawater for innovative cooling technologies, and subsea cable providing connectivity to Europe and the rest of the world, " said CEO of Oxagon, Vishal Wanchoo.
Beyond infrastructure, Oxagon has initiated inclusive training programs that include Saudi women to teach them how to operate advanced container cranes. Oxagon's current workforce is over 500 people representing 55 different countries.
Neom and its cities are intended to redesign urban living, technological and industrial development, and tourism with cutting-edge technology and sustainability in mind. Most notable is The Line, Neom's capital, equivalent to the size of Manhattan in New York City. It's a 1,640-ft tall (500 m), 656-ft wide (200 m) building that sprawls 105 miles (170 km) across the desert.
Neom has been the source of much controversy since October of 2024 when ITV released a documentary called Kingdom Uncovered: Inside Saudi Arabia, claiming as many as 21,000 workers have lost their lives since 2017 in the construction of Saudi Vision 2030, which includes Neom, Oxagon, the Line, Desert Rock, and more.
Saudi Arabia's National Council for Occupational Safety and Health (NCOSH) states that the country's work-related fatality rate is 1.12 per 100,000 workers, which is relatively low compared to global construction standards. 2021 United Kingdom figures are 1.62 in 100k. Australia saw 6.2 deaths per 100k in 2018. The 2021 global average fatality rate in construction is estimated to be around 10.24 per 100,000 workers. If the Saudi information is accurate, this rate would require a workforce of nearly 2 million to reach 21,000 deaths, which does align with Saudi Arabia's quite large labor pool, estimated to be in the millions.
That being said and after fairly exhaustive research: With such a large workforce, the 21,000 deaths figure appears entirely plausible, however, that figure falls well below the global average of construction fatalities per 100,000 workers. The "21,000 deaths" references seen in recent headlines all originate back to the ITV documentary, with no other credible sources.
Source: Alarbiya
