The Metro Builders Riyadh Once Owed Came Back

In April 2021, people close to the job said Bechtel was owed about $1 billion on the Riyadh Metro, with other foreign builders chasing several billions more. The Royal Commission for Riyadh City said certified bills had been paid and that leftover claims sat in a contract process. Five years later those same names are back on the commission’s books.

The public fight over unpaid metro certificates has left the news cycle. What replaced it is new work: extra trains, a western extension, and fresh supervision deals on a network that is already carrying passengers.

Bechtel’s $1 Billion Claim Sat in Dispute

The April 2021 accounts put U.S. engineer Bechtel at the top of the unpaid pile on the capital’s six-line metro, then described as about 90 percent complete. Firms from the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Spain and Italy were said to be pursuing several billions of dollars in total. Bechtel did not comment at the time.

The other names on that list were the UK’s W.S. Atkins, Spain’s Fomento de Construcciones y Contratas (FCC), and Italy’s Salini Impregilo, already rebranded as Webuild. They were not stray vendors. They sat inside the three consortia that took the original 2013 design-and-build packages, a let of $22.5 billion for 176 kilometres, 85 stations and six driverless lines.

Part of the delay was Covid-19. Crews were stuck outside the kingdom, materials ran late, and sites had to be stood down and restaffed. Those disruptions produced prolongation claims, which is how a metro that was meant to open as a full network in 2019 was still arguing over money in 2021.

The claim figure for Bechtel was never published as an invoice. It came from people familiar with the talks. What was public is that the dispute was large enough to slow a project already years behind its first timetable, and that the client’s answer was process, not a cheque-by-cheque rebuttal of each line item.

The Royal Commission Called the Bills Paid

The Royal Commission for Riyadh City, which runs the metro for the capital, answered within days. Payments to contractors, it said, had “been made in a timely manner.” The claims in the reports, it added, were “being assessed as per a dispute resolution process stipulated within the contract.”

We wish to state at the outset that we categorically deny any claims that contractors have not been paid.

Royal Commission for Riyadh City, April 2021 statement

That pairing, certified monthly bills paid on time, variation and delay claims parked in the contract machinery, is how big public works usually talk past each other. One side counts work done and cash not yet released. The other counts only what the engineer has certified. Both can be true on the same job.

The commission also pointed to the pandemic. Supply chains broke, it said, but the metro kept moving after the client changed how sites were run. It did not publish a schedule of what had been paid against the $22.5 billion 2013 packages, and it did not put a number on the claims still inside the process.

For the builders, the distinction was not academic. A certified progress payment funds payroll and suppliers. A disputed variation sits on the balance sheet. In 2021 the second pile was the one making it into the open.

Oil Crashes Have Frozen Contractor Cash Before

Riyadh had already taught this lesson. After crude collapsed in 2015, ministries slowed or stopped payments across construction, health and even some of the foreign consultants hired to design the economic reforms. In November 2016 an official document showed the government had set aside 100 billion riyals ($26.7 billion) to clear private-sector arrears that had run for months.

Fahad al-Hammadi, then chief of the National Contractors’ Committee at the Council of Saudi Chambers, said firms had received 40 billion riyals ($10.7 billion) in about two weeks, which he put at 25 percent of what was owed. Finance minister Mohammed Aljadaan, asked about the stock of unpaid bills, said it was “billions of dollars.”

Simon Moon, then chief executive of Atkins Middle East, said the 2016 squeeze hit the wider market hard, but that payments on the Riyadh Metro and on Royal Commission for Jubail and Yanbu framework deals had continued. That is the awkward part of the 2021 fight. Atkins was on the metro, and metro cash was supposed to be the exception. By April 2021 the same company sat on the unpaid list anyway.

The pattern is crude-linked, not personal. When oil revenue drops, certified work on even a crown-prince project can wait. When prices recover, the client settles enough to finish. Contractors who can fund the gap stay in the kingdom. Those who cannot leave, or they get taken over. The metro’s foreign groups funded the gap long enough to reach opening day.

Who Built Each Riyadh Metro Line?

Three international groups took the 2013 packages from the Arriyadh Development Authority, the commission’s predecessor. FAST, led by FCC, won the largest single contract at $7.82 billion for Lines 4, 5 and 6. BACS, led by Bechtel with Almabani General Contractors, Consolidated Contractors Company and Siemens, took Lines 1 and 2. Arriyadh New Mobility, with Webuild (then Salini Impregilo), Bombardier, Ansaldo, Larsen & Toubro and Nesma, took Line 3.

THE 2013 PACKAGES AND WHERE THOSE FIRMS ARE NOW

Bechtel’s two lines run 63.1 kilometres with 40 stations, including King Abdullah Financial District, with its folded roof, and STC Olaya, more than 100 feet underground. Siemens supplied the trains and the signalling. FAST’s package, which FCC called the largest foreign job a Spanish contractor had then won, mixed 29.8 kilometres of viaduct, 8.2 kilometres at grade and 26.6 kilometres of tunnel.

Those splits matter because the 2021 claims were not one invoice against one company. Each consortium had its own contract, its own delay file, and its own path through the commission’s dispute clause. A settlement with Bechtel’s group would not automatically clear Webuild’s, which is why the August 2022 talks were described consortium by consortium.

The Network Opened After the Claims Receded

On 24 August 2022, people familiar with the talks said two of the three consortia, the groups that include Bechtel and Alstom, had reached deals on the disputed payments, and that the third group, which includes Webuild, was expected to sign soon. Terms were not published. Representatives for Bechtel, Alstom and the commission did not comment then.

By late 2022 the three groups had also struck deals with the commission on how to finish the remaining works. The public bill fight went quiet. Construction, testing and trial running filled the next two years. On 27 November 2024, King Salman inaugurated the system. Bechtel official inauguration of the Riyadh Metro language treated the day as a delivery milestone, not a claims post-mortem.

FROM FIRST LET TO FULL SERVICE

1. July 29, 2013: Arriyadh Development Authority awards three design-and-build packages totalling $22.5 billion, with FAST’s lines at $7.82 billion, and sets a 2019 target for the full 176 km network.
2. 2014: Ground breaks. Bechtel later calls the job the world’s largest rail project then under construction.
3. November 2016: After the oil crash, the state sets aside 100 billion riyals ($26.7 billion) for private-sector arrears; contractors receive 40 billion riyals ($10.7 billion), put at 25 percent of dues.
4. April 6, 2021: People familiar with the metro say Bechtel is owed about $1 billion and that several billions are outstanding across the job, then about 90 percent complete.
5. August 24, 2022: Two consortia reach payment deals; the Webuild group is said to be next. Finish-out deals follow later that year.
6. November 27, 2024 to January 5, 2025: Royal opening, then passenger service in three steps, with Line 3 last, six years after the 2019 target.

Bechtel said the metro should initially serve 1.2 million passengers a day, with a planned maximum of 3.6 million, and that public transport’s share in the city should rise from 2 percent to 18 percent by 2030. Darren Mort, president of Bechtel’s infrastructure business, tied the opening to that shift.

The Riyadh Metro will transform travel in Saudi Arabia by offering a more sustainable and efficient mode of transportation for millions of people. As one of the most complex projects that Bechtel has ever undertaken, I am especially proud of our team for overcoming many technical challenges and completing this project with the utmost skill and ingenuity.

Darren Mort, President, Bechtel Infrastructure, 27 November 2024

The finished network still trails its ridership targets. Alstom, in a 28 September 2026 order announcement, put cumulative rides since late 2024 at more than 100 million, a real load that is still far under the 1.2 million daily figure sold at opening. The trains run. The original passenger promise has not yet been met.

A $2.75 Billion Extension Went to Webuild

The tell is who won the next jobs. On 13 January 2026 the commission awarded a Webuild-led group the design and build of an 8.4 kilometre westward push of the Red Line, from King Saud University toward Diriyah Gate. On 22 January, Webuild put the contract at a $2.75 billion Red Line extension, with its own 30.1 percent share at about $830 million. Partners are India’s Larsen & Toubro, Saudi contractor Nesma and France’s Alstom, the same mix that built Line 3.

The new piece is 1.3 kilometres on viaduct and 7.1 kilometres in tunnel, with five stations, three of them underground, plus signalling, and a tunnel boring machine for the mined section. It is meant to tie the existing Red Line to Diriyah, the first Saudi capital and a Unesco site now being rebuilt as a cultural district. The job is expected to take six years. Webuild has been in the kingdom since 1966 and still posts the Orange Line’s Western Station as a finished asset, not a closed chapter.

A new model of mobility is rising in the heart of the desert.

🚇In #Riyadh, the Western Station completes the #OrangeLine of the metro, part of a driverless network also developed with Webuild’s contribution, and redefines how a metropolis built around cars can move into the… pic.twitter.com/qJpSFIqboS

— Webuild (@Webuild_Group) June 20, 2026

Alstom did not leave either. On 28 September 2026 it signed a contract worth about €460 million (about $585.5 million, Alstom’s own conversion) to supply more driverless trains for Lines 3, 4 and 6 and to fold them into the existing kit. The order sits on top of 116 driverless trains already delivered. Maintenance rides on Alstom’s current operate-and-maintain contract for those three lines. The extra stock is aimed in particular at the Yellow Line, which will serve Expo 2030.

THE 2026 WORK THE OLD BUILDERS TOOK

• Red Line west: Webuild, L&T, Nesma and Alstom take an 8.4 km, $2.75 billion design-and-build job from the same client that was in payment talks in 2022.
• Extra trains: Alstom’s €460 million September order adds stock on three lines it already equipped, booked in the second quarter of its 2026/27 year.
• Supervision: In July 2026 the commission awarded AtkinsRéalis, the old W.S. Atkins, engineering and construction-supervision work on the metro and on city roads.
• Line 7 bids: Groups that include Alstom, Webuild, Siemens, FCC and Almabani have already offered for a further line, a 65 kilometre route with 19 stations in the bids described this year.
• Prize, not a walkout: FCC’s FAST group took a Spanish civil-engineering award in 2026 for Lines 4, 5 and 6, 29 stations and more than 70 kilometres of those routes.

Bechtel’s Saudi file did not shrink to a warranty folder. In October 2025, miner Maaden gave Bechtel the engineering, procurement and construction-management contract for the Ar Rjum gold mine, and Bechtel’s mining president, Ailie MacAdam, cited the metro among the jobs that keep the company in the kingdom. Bechtel has worked in Saudi Arabia for more than 80 years. The 2021 claim did not break that run.

Live discussion of the metro has shifted with those awards. The unpaid-certificate fight is treated as closed commercial history. The argument now is whether the network can add stock and kilometres fast enough for Expo 2030 and a larger Riyadh, not whether last decade’s progress bills are still on a desk in the commission.

Construction Fills 47% of New Arbitrations

The quieter change is legal. Saudi Arabia’s Civil Transactions Law, in force from December 2023, sets out how construction contracts, variations, delay and hardship are supposed to work, including a narrow door to reopen a lump-sum price when exceptional events wreck the bargain. Public bodies still need prime-ministerial approval before they agree to arbitrate, unless a special rule says otherwise.

The Saudi Center for Commercial Arbitration’s 2025 caseload shows where that energy is going. The centre registered 182 cases that year, of which 119 were arbitrations, with about $1.09 billion in dispute in those arbitrations. Construction and engineering made up 47% of those arbitrations, the largest sector. Average disposal times were 259 days for ordinary cases and 148 days for expedited ones.

THE 2025 ARBITRATION DOCKET

• Caseload: 182 new SCCA cases in 2025, 119 of them arbitrations.
• Money in play: About $1.09 billion in dispute across those arbitrations.
• The dominant sector: Construction and engineering, at 47 percent of the arbitrations.
• Clock: 259 days on average for a regular case, 148 days when expedited.

That docket is the standing answer to the 2021 metro fight. Claims on a giga-project no longer have to live as anonymous briefings. They can go to a Riyadh-seated tribunal with a published timetable. Whether any leftover metro items are inside those 119 files has not been disclosed. The sector weight says the next argument over a delay or a variation will likely look like arbitration, not a leaked billions figure.

The original 2021 invoices were never published line by line, and no close-out statement has put a final number on what Bechtel or the other groups collected. What is on the record is the sequence: a $1 billion-scale claim, a commission denial paired with a dispute clause, payment deals in 2022, trains in 2024, and, in 2026, the same client sending Webuild west on a $2.75 billion job and Alstom back to the yard for more cars.