Mumm: A big part of our company’s history in Saudi Arabia is tied to the country's development—with Bechtel's involvement in everything from one of the first oil refineries in Ras Tanura in 1943 to some of the first airports, power stations and energy projects. For the Jubail industrial development program that we started on in the 1970s, we've done work on more than 300 projects.

On the Riyadh Metro rail project, Bechtel is a consortium partner for design, construction and integration, also serving as EPC contractor for two of its most challenging lines. We're also working at Neom as a project management consultant, and at King Salman International Airport, Bechtel is terminal delivery partner. So this has been really a journey of many decades. World Expo, if you talk about it as a sector, is an event but also it is urban development. We thought we had that experience at Neom, and we have that experience at Expo now. We also really understand Riyadh and moving around on the ground.

What lessons learned from Riyadh Metro will the company gain in managing Expo’s infrastructure development?

 I was project director on Riyadh Metro, where we had over 100 jobsites, 38 stations and two lines—just an amazing project. We did it as an [engineering, procurement, and construction] fixed price project with Siemens Mobility and with regional contractors Almabani and Consolidated Contractors Co.

In that process, we really learned about all the stakeholders in Riyadh, such as the utility companies, and I think we built up trust with a lot of the municipal authorities. That really set us up for the Expo work because it is a 6-km greenfield site north of Riyadh, south of the airport. We're doing all of the infrastructure work there—all the utilities and roads. We're working as a project manager for the Expo development company, which is a public investment fund entity.

There's also a longer term plan for the expo site, which is to have a longer term benefit to the community.

As Bechtel’s projects in Saudi Arabia have become more complex, how have local contractors evolved through projects like Riyadh Metro?

I could really see over time that these companies are growing and developing, and that's a legacy. Safety is a great example. If you would go around to residential or commercial construction sites, standards of PPE and site control [were not] what you would expect and not really at the same standard as the US. Because a lot of that workforce and those contractors were involved in the Riyadh Metro—along with other great companies—we had really high standards on safety. That kind of rising tide lifted all boats in Riyadh.

We know a lot of the contractors that will work on Expo. It's not all decided just yet, but we know a lot of the owners of these companies, and their [jobsite managers.] We lived there with them over the past decade.

From a cultural standpoint, having spent many years living in Saudi Arabia, how would you say support for projects like Riyadh Metro and the World Expo differs there versus in the U.S.?

It's a nuance. They of course complete design, and you have to get through stages of design before you get to construction, and drawings have to be approved. There's a civil defense authority that validates that everything is done, a quality program and professional engineering—all those things we're used to. But I think political support for projects, once there’s a decision to do that project, is 100%. There's a royal decree, the project gets funding, land gets allocated and work follows. Of course there are annual budgets and funding cycles and all those things same as in the rest of the world. But it seems like commitment to projects can sometimes be more. When it happens, it it is more consistent.

In terms of the Expo, as a megaproject, do you manage the risks posed by limited regional resources amid competition with other projects?

 There definitely is competition for resources. I think Saudi Arabia is definitely one of the busiest live, active construction markets in the world. So how do you manage because there's finite capacity in the contracting community? I think the answer is that you have to really spend a lot of time engaging the contracting community early on and engaging the supply chain, to test where there's capacity and when you need to augment capacity.  This potentially means bringing in regional contractors from other countries in the Gulf Cooperation Council or taking lower tier contractors and finding a way responsibly to help them get on the curve through training, support and mentoring.

 That's that's another thing, and then, critically, to make sure that what the contract structures are a balanced risk reward. It might be that there's so much work going on, given the particular circumstances, one contract structure, a fixed price contract structure may not be appropriate. I think you just have to see where is the capacity, and the only way that you do that is by talking to the contracting community.

What kinds of conversations are you having with the contracting community about Expo preparations?

Expo 2030 is really a cool thing. There's also Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030, and that all leads up to the 100-year anniversary of the founding of the modern Saudi state. It's all very carefully choreographed. Vision 2030 is really about preparing the country, the economy and the people for the future and for a post-carbon economy. Innovation is really at the forefront. How do we [build] the Expo in a way that is different and better than other projects have done before? That is the idea of the project.