Kingdom Holding may find another contractor for the world's tallest tower: CEO

Works on the world’s tallest structure, Jeddah Tower, is currently delayed as issues with the contractors mount, according to its developer Kingdom Holding Company (KHC).

“We are facing contractor-related delays, but we are trying to get them up to speed,” Talal Al-Mayman, CEO of KHC and board member of the Jeddah Economic Company, told Argaam on the sidelines of the Bloomberg Invest Abu Dhabi summit.

Al-Mayman also mentioned that the developer might consider moving on to a different contractor for the tower if the issues with the current one doesn’t get resolved.

“If we don’t get to the resolution of getting the right completion timing for the tallest tower in the world, we will probably have to resolve to the contract. In case of failure with the current contractor, the contract always allows us to move to the next one,” he stated.

Meanwhile, the CEO noted that infrastructure works for the project will be completed in the next two to three months.

“Infrastructure work on the project is currently going on. We are a bit late on that due to some additional work assigned to the contractors. But it should be completed in the next two to three months,” Al-Mayman said.

In August 2011, Saudi Binladin Group (SBG) was awarded the main contract worth nearly $1 billion for the Jeddah Tower, which has an estimated height of 1 kilometer. In January 2018, a SAR 620 million contract was awarded to Al-Fouzan Trading & General Construction Co. to build the infrastructure networks of Jeddah Tower and Jeddah Economic City (JEC).

A closed joint stock company, the Jeddah Economic Company, was formed in 2009 to be the financial entity for Jeddah Tower and JEC. It was made up primarily of stakeholders KHC (33.35 percent), Abrar Holding Company (33.35 percent), businessman Abdulrahman Hassan Sharbately (16.67 percent), as well as the tower's own contractor, SBG (16.63 percent).

Write to Paromita Dey at paromita.d@argaamplus.com