(Bloomberg): PIF asks consulting firms to review The Line project

Bloomberg quoted people familiar with the matter as saying that the Kingdom has asked consulting firms to conduct a strategic review of its ambitious plans to build The Line, a futuristic city, as it evaluates its spending priorities related to the project.

The people, who requested anonymity, said that a unit of the sovereign wealth fund asked the firms to review the feasibility of current plans for The Line – a planned 170-kilometer (105-mile) carbon-neutral city and part of the Kingdom’s NEOM development project – and propose potential changes.

The Line is a Saudi project for a series of connected, AI-enhanced, carbon-neutral communities planned for NEOM.

Finance Minister Mohammed Al-Jadaan had previously stated that the Kingdom would continue its current pace of government spending despite the budget deficit, but would review spending priorities and evaluate development projects during a period of low oil prices. The Line project’s features are beginning to take shape with intensive work to implement the first phase of the master plan, according to data from NEOM in 2024. NEOM confirmed that there are more than 260 drilling machines operating on the project around the clock, in addition to 2,000 heavy vehicles to transport more than 3 million cubic meters of soil.