Saudis feeling the pinch?

[Option5]

Humiliation for Saudi Arabia as it's 'forced to scale back $1.5trillion The Line project'

 https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13292521/Saudi-Arabia-forced-scaleback-Line-project-NEOM.html?ito=native_share_article-top

 

[One percent]

6 minutes ago, Option5 said:

Humiliation for Saudi Arabia as it's 'forced to scale back $1.5trillion The Line project'

 https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13292521/Saudi-Arabia-forced-scaleback-Line-project-NEOM.html?ito=native_share_article-top

 

Maybe they realised that no one would want to live in a chicken box in the middle of the desert.   Watch the promotional video at the link. It’s the most depressing thing ever, on so many levels.  

[Phil]

10 minutes ago, Option5 said:

Humiliation for Saudi Arabia as it's 'forced to scale back $1.5trillion The Line project'

 https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13292521/Saudi-Arabia-forced-scaleback-Line-project-NEOM.html?ito=native_share_article-top

 

They realised that most have moved to London 

[spunko]

It was always a load of bollocks, but I can't figure out the real reason behind this NEOM scam.

Anyone know?

[Chewing Grass]

2 minutes ago, spunko said:

It was always a load of bollocks, but I can't figure out the real reason behind this NEOM scam.

Anyone know?

There there is the 'Winter Sports' resort as well.

[Bien Pensant]

27 minutes ago, spunko said:

It was always a load of bollocks, but I can't figure out the real reason behind this NEOM scam.

Anyone know?

Presumably, because their oil's running out.

Hard to imagine any other reason why the world's second largest oil producer would have committed to Net Zero.

They've got nearly 40 million people in a land that can only support about 3 naturally and, consequently, they actually have to burn a lot of their oil for desalination.

The reason The Line was supposed to be 170 km long was to make it car-free. The basic idea was to have a string of '5 minute cities', connected via an arrow-straight high-speed rail line.

See https://www.forbes.com/sites/bradtempleton/2023/06/21/saudi-arabias-neom-the-line-choses-that-shape-due-to-20th-century-train-thinking/

Edited April 10 by Bien Pensant

[Axeman123]

Its obvious IMO: they see oil demand slowing (lots of production cuts and yet price below fairly recent ATHs) and know price (and hence revenue for them) will follow. The House of Saud should be among the first to see this sort of thing coming. MBS seems a lot sharper than the average Arab, and will know that a recession is a bad time to be building a Star Trek city. Rivalry with Dubai and Qatar also seems likely to have been a big part of the appeal of projects like this for MBS, but neither of them are doing anything comparable right now either AIUI so there won't even be that driving him.

[Bien Pensant]

2 hours ago, Bien Pensant said:

Presumably, because their oil's running out.

Hard to imagine any other reason why the world's second largest oil producer would have committed to Net Zero.

They've got nearly 40 million people in a land that can only support about 3 naturally and, consequently, they actually have to burn a lot of their oil for desalination.

The reason The Line was supposed to be 170 km long was to make it car-free. The basic idea was to have a string of '5 minute cities', connected via an arrow-straight high-speed rail line.

See https://www.forbes.com/sites/bradtempleton/2023/06/21/saudi-arabias-neom-the-line-choses-that-shape-due-to-20th-century-train-thinking/

@spunko

In the documentary below, MBS explains the rationale.

Apparently, Saudi's population [which is already completely unsustainable] is expected to grow by about 20 million by 2030 so the idea is to put them all up in a giant block of flats, with trains in the basement linking lifts up the towers:

The rest of the video is just modernist architect wankers, whacking themselves off in public, as usual.

Top comment: This documentary is a masterclass in saying very little over a 45min period.

Out of curiosity, does anyone know how the fuck architects get away with talking, and presumably thinking, like stoned teenagers?

I wouldn't accept anything else designed by someone who dressed like a children's TV presenter and blathered on about being 'progressive natural experimenters', 'putting their brains in the washing machine', 'cities needing rhythms', it being 'the time of the poets' and 'catching unicorns' so why the fuck would I let them loose on a whole city?

No wonder most of their ideas turn into catastrophes.

Maybe the Saudis just came to their senses and realised that before it was too late. If so , then thank fuck for that, it literally looks like a hell on Earth, a gulag designed by moronic arseholes who never learn that all people want off them is a patch of ground with services laid on, not a "Petri dish" designed as a "provocation to the world".

TL;DR: I fucking hate modernist architects because if the Devil was looking to remodel blazes he'd get them to do it!

Edited April 10 by Bien Pensant

[Calcutta]

Always figured they were using it as a way to transfer what's left of the oil money to the families of the ruling class so they can piss off and live somewhere a bit more hospitable to human life.

[Frank Hovis]

2 hours ago, Calcutta said:

Always figured they were using it as a way to transfer what's left of the oil money to the families of the ruling class so they can piss off and live somewhere a bit more hospitable to human life.

 

Yep.

I've said on other threads that the House of Saud has been routinely overstating their oil reserves for years, for every million barrels they have extracted since the late eighties they have magically discovered another million.

There are studies on this, @Kurt Barlow has some first hand anecdotal experience, and it is probably why Aramco the first share sell off happened recently and another £20bn sell off is planned for this year.

Plus the last sell-off only happened in jurisdictions without strong regulative powers for share issues as they would have demanded evidence of claimed reserves.

They are pulling out as much money as they can as quickly as they can before the open secret that they are running out of oil becomes well known and the House of Saud has to flee the country to its overseas estates leaving Saudi Arabia to burn.

 

https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/saudi-arabia-poised-new-aramco-share-sale-sources-2024-02-08/

 

Evidence of overstatement dating back to 2009.

https://ourworld.unu.edu/en/wikileak-cables-saudi-arabia-oil-reserves-overstated#:~:text=The cables%2C released by WikiLeaks,billion barrels — nearly 40%.

 

[BoSon]

They could build a big dome over their capital city and control their own environment like a big Eden Project crossed with Springfield.

Perhaps climate change will mean their desert is less deserty, as all the rain clouds migrate further south and eventually the UK will be in a new ice age while the middle east has all the pissing down rain.

 

[Bien Pensant]

16 hours ago, Frank Hovis said:

 

Yep.

I've said on other threads that the House of Saud has been routinely overstating their oil reserves for years, for every million barrels they have extracted since the late eighties they have magically discovered another million.

There are studies on this, @Kurt Barlow has some first hand anecdotal experience, and it is probably why Aramco the first share sell off happened recently and another £20bn sell off is planned for this year.

Plus the last sell-off only happened in jurisdictions without strong regulative powers for share issues as they would have demanded evidence of claimed reserves.

They are pulling out as much money as they can as quickly as they can before the open secret that they are running out of oil becomes well known and the House of Saud has to flee the country to its overseas estates leaving Saudi Arabia to burn.

 

https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/saudi-arabia-poised-new-aramco-share-sale-sources-2024-02-08/

 

Evidence of overstatement dating back to 2009.

https://ourworld.unu.edu/en/wikileak-cables-saudi-arabia-oil-reserves-overstated#:~:text=The cables%2C released by WikiLeaks,billion barrels — nearly 40%.

 

The shape of The Line made me think of the new capital that Egypt's, Saudi backed, military junta is building for itself as a desert redoubt because protestors were able to overthrow the government in 2011 simply by blocking Cairo's thoroughfares. Consequently, their new capital is intended to be physically separated from the bulk of the population by desert and has numerous anti-mob features:

In like manner, The Line is intended to be car-free and is in the middle of a sweltering desert, which means that one can confine dissent to one cell-block 5-minute-city simply by shutting down the rail-link and locking internal doors.

The Saudis back the Egyptian regime precisely because they are worried about similar internal dissent - the junta overthrew the Muslim Brotherhood which opposes monarchies, such as Saudi's, on theological grounds:

As the video goes on to explain, the Saudi regime is terrified of being overthrown, by both fellow Sunnis who repudiate their Wahhabism and, Iranian-backed, Shias. Their only defence against this is their oil money which they use to pay for security and to bribe the population.

Edited April 12 by Bien Pensant

[Virgil Caine]

Patrick Boyle’s takedown of the Line.

A masterpiece of sarcasm

 

Edited April 18 by Virgil Caine

[Loki]

8 minutes ago, Virgil Caine said:

Patrick Boyle’s takedown of the Line.

A masterpiece of sarcasm

 

So that's what he does now.  I liked "Play" at the time but it was over-played

[Kurt Barlow]

On 10/04/2024 at 19:30, Option5 said:

Humiliation for Saudi Arabia as it's 'forced to scale back $1.5trillion The Line project'

 https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13292521/Saudi-Arabia-forced-scaleback-Line-project-NEOM.html?ito=native_share_article-top

 

Any GCSE Geography student could tell you a city built in that design isn't going to work. Towns and Cities are concentric (topography  has some effect at modification) for a reason. 

[Kurt Barlow]

On 10/04/2024 at 20:31, spunko said:

It was always a load of bollocks, but I can't figure out the real reason behind this NEOM scam.

Anyone know?

Arab Prince Willy waving contest

ex.  Burj Kalifa

[Kurt Barlow]

On 11/04/2024 at 13:59, Frank Hovis said:

 

Yep.

I've said on other threads that the House of Saud has been routinely overstating their oil reserves for years, for every million barrels they have extracted since the late eighties they have magically discovered another million.

There are studies on this, @Kurt Barlow has some first hand anecdotal experience, and it is probably why Aramco the first share sell off happened recently and another £20bn sell off is planned for this year.

Plus the last sell-off only happened in jurisdictions without strong regulative powers for share issues as they would have demanded evidence of claimed reserves.

They are pulling out as much money as they can as quickly as they can before the open secret that they are running out of oil becomes well known and the House of Saud has to flee the country to its overseas estates leaving Saudi Arabia to burn.

 

https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/saudi-arabia-poised-new-aramco-share-sale-sources-2024-02-08/

 

Evidence of overstatement dating back to 2009.

https://ourworld.unu.edu/en/wikileak-cables-saudi-arabia-oil-reserves-overstated#:~:text=The cables%2C released by WikiLeaks,billion barrels — nearly 40%.

 

The Country is run by people who 50 years ago limited their time to fucking their cousins goats and camels. 

Another example of them spunking away their future was in the 70's and 80's when they blew their fossil water resource. They decided to become self sufficient in grain. At the same time the EEC was full of grain mountains. 

Role fwd to the 21st Century. They have run out of water so are almost 100% reliant on grain imports.  Meanwhile they have some pretty good mineral resources particularly over in the west but are handicapped on developing them because they don't have the water for processing. 

The shear waste of resources is beyond belief.

At Aramco most office don't have light switches - the lights are simply left on 24/7

Their solar energy resources are pitiful (pop up lights can tell the tale of the 'biggest solar car park in the world (Al Midra building) debacle) 

In Aramco every project with sustainability in mind gets fucked over. When I was there we put together a proposal to collect green waste, compost and distribute to local farmers who scrape a living off the land. Rejected basically because the farmers are all dirty shias. 

Once the oil runs out it could be used as a nuclear waste dump - its geologically stable in the middle