Saudi Arabia’s Ministry of Municipalities & Housing, in collaboration with Ashraq Development Company and the National Centre for Privatisation & PPP, has issued a request for qualification (RFQ) notice for the development of the King Fahd suburb boulevard project in Dammam.

The notice was issued on 27 August, with a submission deadline of 22 October.

The public-private partnership (PPP) project will be delivered using a design, build, finance, operate, maintain and transfer model, with a 43-year contract term.

The project is located in Al-Bayda Governorate and features a 4 kilometre (km) mixed-use zone along a central boulevard, forming part of a larger 7.3km corridor.

The project will be developed in two phases and span about 1 million square metres.

According to a statement: “The private sector partner will be responsible for developing and operating the boulevard, which includes leisure and recreational facilities, public parks, entertainment venues, retail outlets, office spaces, hospitality zones, pedestrian walkways and road networks.”

The project is the latest addition to the growing number of PPP projects in the kingdom. 

In January, Saudi Arabia launched a national privatisation strategy aimed at mobilising $64bn in private sector capital by 2030.

Building on the privatisation programme first introduced in 2018, the strategy focuses on unlocking state-owned assets for private investment and privatising selected government services.

In a statement, NCP said the strategy comprises 147 opportunities drawn from a broader pipeline of more than 500 projects across 18 sectors.

New discoveries
As a result of comprehensive interpretations of legacy geological data nd new, advanced seismic surveys, regional NOCs were able to announce discoveries of considerable unconventional resources in 2020.

The year also saw state energy players present noteworthy capital expenditure budgets towards the economic recovery of resources, particularly the production of gas, from existing and new tight and shale plays.

Saudi Arabia's unconventional programme has witnessed start-stop periods over decades, during which state energy giant Saudi Aramco had been working to determine the extent and economic potential of reserves available. The kingdom's unconventional campaign was flagged off in 2014, with Aramco awarding UK-based Wood Group a project management services deal, which was extended for two years in January 2020.

There are three areas Aramco has earmarked for commercial development: Turaif in the Northern Borders province and the giant Jafurah basin and South Ghawar, both of which are located in the Eastern Province.

In 2017, the first unconventional gas development project took shape in the north - extracting tight gas from the Turaif deposit to feed a new power station at the nearby Waad al-Shamal industrial city, and thereby solving the problem of the latter lacking a connection to Aramco's cross-country Master Gas System distribution network.