SQM by CapitalSA
TUESDAY, 10 NOVEMBER 2026
Who's building, buying and selling.
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SQM is our property and projects briefing: the contracts, land deals and projects shaping the Kingdom, for developers, contractors, suppliers and brokers. Every Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday, free.
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Today’s SQM
01 / MAKKAH
Good morning from Riyadh, and welcome back to SQM.
On Sunday we asked where the cranes are going. The short answer this week: wherever people and goods need to get to, and wherever the energy money is flowing.
Makkah has handed one of its biggest transport jobs to private companies. They’ll build and run the stations, car parks and bus corridors that take visitors to and from the Grand Mosque.
The General Transport Center, the executive arm of the Royal Commission for Makkah City and Holy Sites, signed agreements worth 5.66 billion Riyal ($1.5 billion) on Sunday for the Wasel Al-Haram project, at the opening of the Hajj Conference and Exhibition in Jeddah.
Photo: Wikimedia Commons
Who’s building it: the project is split into three packages. A consortium of Saudi Alqaid, Spanish bus operator Moventis and Indonesian state contractor Waskita won the first and third. A group led by parking operator Mawgif won the second.
What gets built: 19 stations and car parks along seven corridors, covering 3.1 million sq m, plus a fleet of 3,200 buses. The system is designed to carry 205 million passengers a year.
Who pays: it’s a public-private partnership funded entirely by the private partners, over an investment period of seven to 10 years.
Why it matters: this is a long pipeline of work, not a single contract. Stations, parking structures, depots, charging and fuelling points, and bus bodies all have to be built or bought. Contractors and suppliers should be talking to the three consortia now, while the packages are being planned.
What to watch: the first subcontract awards, and whether the Hajj Ministry’s plan with Saudia for a pilgrim travel station in Makkah, signed at the same event, turns into its own tender.
Read more:
02 / CONTRACTS
Contractors are winning more work this year. Most of the money, though, is going to oil and gas plants, not homes and offices.
The Kingdom awarded 142 projects worth 148.6 billion Riyal ($39.6 billion) in the first 10 months of the year, up 59% from a year earlier, according to the Saudi Contractors Authority’s monthly report, compiled with project tracker SCAVO.
Photo: Aramco
October’s surge: 23 awards worth about $6.6 billion, more than triple the same month last year. Oil and gas took about 70% of that.
Aramco leads: six projects worth about $3.5 billion, the largest being the first package of a gas-oil separation plant for its Safaniya expansion. Al-Khafji Joint Operations added the onshore package of the Dorra gas field, worth about $1.1 billion.
Buildings lag: building and construction had the most awards of any sector in October, nine, but together they were worth only about $1 billion.
Where: the Eastern Province took 12 of October’s 23 awards. Riyadh had five.
The bigger picture: awards peaked in 2024 and more than halved last year as giga-project spending cooled. At this year’s pace, 2026 ends at about two-thirds of the 2024 total.
Why it matters: oil and gas plants use less cement and labor per Riyal than housing or offices, so a big month for Aramco doesn’t fill order books across the industry. The work is in energy, infrastructure and the Eastern Province.
What to watch: whether building awards pick up as Expo 2030 and World Cup packages come out next year.
Read more:
A GOOD BRIEFING TRAVELS
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03 / RAIL
The six Gulf states have agreed how their shared railway will be built and run. The longest piece of it, in Saudi Arabia, hasn’t been tendered for construction yet.
GCC transport ministers signed the General Agreement for the GCC Railway Project in Bahrain on Sunday. The 2,117 km network is 55.92% complete, the GCC Railways Authority said, with full operations targeted for December 2030.
Photo: Wikimedia Commons
What it covers: each country’s responsibilities, a timetable, and common technical and safety standards, so six national lines can run as one network.
Saudi Arabia’s share: 672 km, the longest single stretch, from the Kuwaiti border to the UAE border through Dammam. Without it, the northern and southern ends of the network can’t meet. Saudi Arabia Railways has tendered the design work, and construction tenders follow once design is done.
Who pays: each country funds the track on its own soil, and can bring in private partners to build and run it.
The track record: the railway was first approved in 2009 with a 2018 deadline, and stalled for most of the decade after that.
Why it matters: a 2030 deadline with design still under way means the construction packages, from track and signalling to stations and freight yards, will have to come out quickly. Rail contractors and suppliers lining up now will be ahead when they do.
What to watch: the design award, and the King Hamad Causeway, a planned 57 km road and rail bridge to Bahrain.
Read more:
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DATA POINT
3,200
That’s how many buses Makkah’s new Wasel Al-Haram network will run, on seven corridors serving 19 stations and car parks.
04 / ABHA
Work has started on AlWadi, the district PIF is building in the middle of Abha. And it’s a much bigger project than the one announced three years ago.
PIF-owned developer Ardara has begun early works on AlWadi’s first cluster, according to a post on its LinkedIn page reported by Construction Week Saudi.
Photo: Wikimedia Commons
The team: Shibh Al Jazira Contracting (Sajco) is laying the sewers, Dar Al Riyadh is managing and supervising the infrastructure works, US firm Parsons designed the infrastructure, and OBMI is doing the architecture and public spaces.
The new numbers: the masterplan now has 7,306 apartments, 90 villas and townhouses, and 2,783 hotel rooms, plus about 154,000 sq m of shops and restaurants and 64,000 sq m of offices.
Then and now: when Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman launched Ardara in October 2023, AlWadi promised about 2,000 homes. The homes count has more than tripled since.
Private money is in too: Ardara and Sumou Holding launched a separate project inside AlWadi worth more than four billion Riyal ($1.1 billion) in July.
Why it matters: more homes and hotel rooms mean more work packages. Infrastructure comes first, and the buildings follow. For contractors outside Riyadh and Jeddah, AlWadi is one of the clearest pipelines in the south.
What to watch: the main infrastructure award, and the first building contracts.
Read more:
05 / SOCIETY
For many Riyadh families and firms, this week brought back a familiar routine: plans made a day at a time, around whatever the last alert said.
Air defenses intercepted two Houthi ballistic missiles over Riyadh on Sunday, and debris damaged Aramco’s tower in the King Abdullah Financial District. On Monday, civil defense sent a midday alert and lifted it within minutes.
Photo: Wikimedia Commons
Towers on pause: KAFD, home to the stock exchange, PIF and many of the regional headquarters Riyadh worked hard to attract, has been largely deserted, with office towers above 10 floors closed, Semafor reported.
Harder to reach: at least 25 airlines have suspended or cut Saudi services, some into January. Some consultants are driving in from Bahrain and Oman to keep face time with clients, Bloomberg reported.
Classes back on screens: schools, which reopened only on Sunday, have switched back to remote learning, the third move online this school year.
Why it matters: Riyadh spent years narrowing the salary premium expats demanded to live there instead of Dubai or Doha. Every week of closed towers tests that, and the office demand the headquarters push was meant to bring. The flip side: more of those staff may now choose to live in Riyadh rather than commute.
What to watch: whether the towers reopen and airlines restore Riyadh routes before year-end.
Read more:
06 / MADINAH
The law letting foreigners buy Saudi property is showing up in a Madinah developer’s results.
Knowledge Economic City more than tripled its third-quarter profit to 99.7 million Riyal ($26.6 million), from 28.2 million Riyal a year earlier, the company said in a stock exchange filing. Revenue nearly doubled to about $65 million.
Photo: NASA via Wikimedia Commons
Where it came from: stronger sales at its residential projects since the Non-Saudi Property Ownership Law took effect, a land plot sold in July that brought in about $45 million, and its newly opened hotel.
The year so far: the company swung to a nine-month profit of about $19 million, from a loss a year earlier.
More land on the way: in July it agreed to sell three plots for nearly $106 million, and signed a letter of intent for a $2 billion real estate fund for its Knowledge Gardens project.
Why it matters: Madinah has its own rules under the ownership law, and demand there is now showing up in the numbers. For brokers and developers, foreign buyers are already buying, not just watching.
What to watch: whether the Knowledge Gardens fund goes ahead, and who builds it.
Read more:
07 / MINING
Saudi Arabia’s biggest miner is cutting what it spends on projects this year.
Ma’aden now expects to spend about $1 billion less than the roughly $4.1 billion it planned, management told analysts on Monday.
Photo: Ma’aden
What the plan covered: most of the budget was for growth projects, including the first phase of Phosphate 3, the Ar Rjum gold mine and an aluminium recycling center.
The quarter: revenue rose 11% to about $3 billion, but EBITDA, a measure of operating earnings, fell 24% as sulfur costs squeezed the phosphate business. Gold and aluminium both had record quarters.
Why it matters: less spending means fewer or later packages for the contractors and equipment suppliers working on Ma’aden’s mines and plants.
What to watch: which projects slow down, and which keep going.
TENDER TRACKER
What’s Open
The tenders worth knowing about this week, in one place.
OPEN NOW
Makkah province: state-owned Water Transmission Company is looking for a contractor to join it on a 15 km, 60-inch pipeline from Wadi Hali Dam, part of the Ras Mohaisen water system. Firms are being invited to prequalify.
King Salman International Airport: roads, bridges and utilities for Terminal 6. Bids due Dec. 6.
Riyadh: the 50-year Al Narjis plot, Riyadh municipality’s first build-own-operate-transfer land deal. Bids close Feb. 3, 2027.
Won a contract or opened a tender? Tell us: [email protected]
THE WEEK AHEAD
What We’re Watching
Through Wednesday, 11 November / Pilgrims. The Hajj Conference and Exhibition wraps up in Jeddah.
Around Thursday, 12 November / Refunds. The window closes for individuals who sold property between 2018 and 2020 to claim back the VAT they paid.
Thursday, 3 December / Homes. Retal’s shareholders vote on issuing 55 million new shares to buy into fellow developer Ajdan.
Moved to February / Cityscape. Cityscape Global now runs 1–4 February 2027.
BEFORE YOU GO
Follow the Route
Stations in Makkah, track across the Gulf, gas plants in the east, a new district in Abha.
The money isn’t spread evenly. It’s going where people need to get to and where the energy is, and the homes, hotels and shops follow.
For anyone pricing a bid this quarter, it’s worth asking where the next route is going.
Who’s building, buying and selling.
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