From Dubai to Marrakech: 10 Infrastructure Projects to Watch Across MENA
Across the Middle East and North Africa, some of the most consequential transport projects now taking shape are disappearing beneath the surface.
Dubai is simultaneously boring metro tunnels, preparing a small-diameter underground passenger network and expanding a road system increasingly dependent on tunnels and grade-separated junctions. Riyadh is rebuilding major road corridors while extending its metro underground. Oman and the UAE are driving a railway through difficult mountain terrain, Cairo has six tunnel boring machines working on a single metro programme, and Morocco is pushing its high-speed railway south towards Marrakech.
The workload extends well beyond tunnelling. These programmes require enormous quantities of precast concrete, bridges and viaducts, earthmoving fleets, ground treatment, drainage, utility relocation, railway systems and increasingly sophisticated construction management.
It is a timely backdrop to the 3rd Roads, Bridges & Tunnels MENA Conference, taking place at the Al Habtoor Grand Resort in Dubai on 11 and 12 November 2026. Across the region, many of the projects likely to shape discussion are no longer concepts on development plans. Finance is being assembled, contracts have been awarded and heavy construction is under way.
Briefing
- Dubai Metro’s AED20.5 billion Blue Line includes 15.5 km of underground alignment, with primary tunnelling now under way.
- Dubai’s newly approved Fourth Corridor is planned around 80 km of highway with 72 bridges, 17 tunnels and 45 stormwater culverts.
- The 238 km Hafeet Rail connection between Oman and the UAE had reached 40% completion by April 2026.
- Riyadh is combining a multibillion-dollar road programme with a $2.75 billion, largely underground extension of its Metro Red Line.
- Cairo Metro Line 4 and Morocco’s Kenitra-Marrakech high-speed railway extend the current construction pipeline well beyond the Gulf.
1. Dubai Loop, UAE
Few transport schemes illustrate the region’s willingness to experiment quite as clearly as Dubai Loop.
Dubai’s Roads and Transport Authority signed an implementation agreement with The Boring Company in February 2026 for an underground passenger transport system beginning with a 6.4 km pilot connecting Dubai International Financial Centre and Dubai Mall. Four stations are planned in the first phase, while the full alignment is expected to extend to around 22 km with 19 stations linking the World Trade Centre and financial district with Business Bay.
The tunnels themselves are unusually small by urban railway standards, with a diameter of approximately 3.6 metres. The first phase is estimated at AED565 million, around $154 million, while RTA’s February project announcement put the full alignment at approximately AED2 billion. The initial phase is expected to take roughly one year following design and preparation, with the complete route requiring around three years under the published programme.
The Boring Company is the principal delivery partner. Parsons has been appointed to support programme management and design and construction activities, while Aecom was subsequently selected for design review and construction supervision. Precast production has already become part of the construction story, with around 25,000 concrete tunnel segments expected for the first phase.
The technical challenge is less about record-breaking tunnel diameter than building beneath one of Dubai’s most intensely developed districts. Existing utilities, foundations, roads and operating buildings constrain alignment and access. The project will also provide a commercial test of The Boring Company’s proposition that smaller tunnels and highly mechanised construction can reduce the cost and disruption normally associated with urban underground transport.
Only a few kilometres away, Dubai is simultaneously pursuing a much more conventional answer to the same problem of moving people through an increasingly dense city.
2. Dubai Metro Blue Line, UAE
The AED20.5 billion Dubai Metro Blue Line comprises 30 km of railway, divided between 15.5 km underground and 14.5 km above ground. Four of its 14 stations will be underground, alongside seven elevated stations and three interchange stations.
RTA awarded the project to a consortium of Turkey’s MAPA and LIMAK with China’s CRRC, combining major civil engineering capability with railway systems and rolling-stock expertise. Primary tunnelling began in May 2026 from International City 1 Station, with tunnelling proceeding in three directions towards Mirdif, the Auto Market and Al Warsan.
The scale of the machinery gives some indication of the underground work ahead. The first TBM, named Al Wugeisha, is 163 metres long, weighs more than 2,000 tonnes and is designed to advance at an average 13 to 17 metres per day. It incorporates digital guidance and monitoring systems alongside an integrated spoil-handling system and is designed to work through rock formations and sandy strata.
Above ground, foundations and piers are already progressing for the line’s structures, including a 1.3 km bridge across Dubai Creek, the first metro bridge to span the waterway. International City 1 will contain the network’s largest underground interchange station, covering more than 44,000 square metres.
The line will serve Dubai Creek Harbour, Dubai Festival City, International City, Dubai Silicon Oasis, Academic City and surrounding growth areas, while connecting into the existing Red and Green Lines. Opening is scheduled for 9 September 2029.
With two very different underground transport systems progressing, Dubai’s road programme is also moving increasingly into tunnels, bridges and multi-level junctions.
3. New Fourth Corridor, Dubai, UAE
Approved in September 2026, Dubai’s New Fourth Corridor is one of the freshest major additions to the regional roads pipeline.
The planned corridor will run for approximately 80 km between Al Faya Road in the direction of Abu Dhabi and Al Shanouf Road towards Sharjah. It will be delivered in two phases, with the first extending from Al Shanouf Road to Dubai-Al Ain Road at an estimated cost of AED3.5 billion.
The structural content is substantial. RTA plans 72 bridges, 17 tunnels and 45 stormwater drainage culverts, with the alignment passing Al Maktoum International Airport, conservation areas, development zones and the Etihad Rail corridor.
Interfaces with rail infrastructure, airport development, drainage systems and environmentally sensitive land will sit alongside the conventional demands of bridges, tunnels, pavements and earthworks. The AED3.5 billion figure applies to the first phase rather than the entire 80 km programme, while detailed contracting information for the wider corridor has yet to emerge publicly.
That puts the Fourth Corridor at a particularly interesting point in its development. Unlike many of the projects on this list, much of the construction opportunity still lies ahead.
4. Latifa bint Hamdan Corridor, Dubai, UAE
Elsewhere in Dubai, the procurement stage has already passed.
RTA awarded the AED2 billion Latifa bint Hamdan Corridor Development Project in July 2026. The 12 km scheme will connect Sheikh Zayed Road with Emirates Road through Al Khail Road, Al Meydan Street, Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Road and Sheikh Zayed bin Hamdan Al Nahyan Street.
Seven bridges totalling 2.3 km and eight tunnels totalling around 900 metres are included, with completion scheduled for the end of 2028. RTA expects the completed corridor eventually to accommodate more than 16,000 vehicles an hour in both directions.
The project continues Dubai’s shift towards creating road capacity through multi-level junctions, tunnels and bridge structures where straightforward surface widening becomes increasingly difficult. Excavation support, bridge construction, utility diversion, retaining structures and traffic management consequently form a large part of what might once have been described simply as a road contract.
Dubai accounts for four of the projects on this list, reflecting both the location of November’s conference and the unusually concentrated programme of transport construction now under way across the emirate. A similarly complex combination of road and underground railway construction is taking place in Riyadh.
5. Riyadh Main and Ring Roads Development Programme, Saudi Arabia
Riyadh’s road development programme is better understood as a succession of major construction packages than as a single road project.
The Royal Commission for Riyadh City began the first phase with four projects worth more than SAR13 billion, approximately $3.46 billion. They include a 56 km second southern ring road with 32 bridges and ten major intersections, new structures around the Wadi Laban suspension bridge, development of the western Al-Thumama Road axis and a 16 km extension of Al Taif Road towards Qiddiya. The first phase was given a construction period of approximately three to four years.
The programme has continued to expand, with another group of projects announced in 2026 covering approximately 40 km with a budget of SAR9.8 billion and designed capacity of around 950,000 vehicles a day. Individual contracts are already generating substantial work for Saudi contractors, including Shibh Al-Jazira Contracting on the Al Taif Road connection towards Qiddiya.
The construction is taking place while Riyadh itself is changing rapidly. New districts, entertainment destinations, metro services and preparations for major international events are altering travel demand while the road network is being rebuilt around them.
Below those roads, another major civil engineering programme is extending the city’s metro.
6. Riyadh Metro Red Line Extension, Saudi Arabia
In January 2026, the Royal Commission for Riyadh City awarded a consortium led by Webuild the contract for the extension of the Riyadh Metro Red Line. The consortium also includes Larsen & Toubro, Saudi Arabia’s NESMA and Alstom, with the contract valued at approximately $2.75 billion.
The extension is 8.4 km long, but approximately 7.1 km will run through tunnels. Five stations are included, three underground, while the subterranean section will be excavated using a tunnel boring machine. The remaining 1.3 km will run on viaduct.
Alstom’s involvement covers railway systems within a consortium bringing together tunnelling, civil construction and rail technology. The extension adds another major underground worksite to a city already managing extensive road construction, utilities and existing transport infrastructure.
South-east of Riyadh, the scale changes again. Instead of threading new infrastructure through a dense capital, the next project crosses an international border and some of the most demanding terrain on the list.
7. Hafeet Rail, Oman–UAE
The 238 km Hafeet Rail project will connect Sohar in Oman with the UAE railway network through Al Buraimi and Al Ain. Hafeet Rail, a joint venture involving Etihad Rail, Oman Rail and Mubadala, reported in April 2026 that construction had reached 40% completion.
The route includes approximately 2.5 km of tunnels and 60 major bridges, some rising to 34 metres. Construction passes through mountains and deep wadis as well as urban and industrial areas, requiring extensive excavation, flood protection and major structures.
Its financing structure is equally substantial. A consortium of regional and international banks agreed approximately $1.5 billion in project financing, including institutions from the UAE and Oman alongside Arab Bank, National Bank of Kuwait and Standard Chartered.
The contractor base is international. PowerChina and Larsen & Toubro have secured EPC work covering freight facilities and stations on the Oman section, including facilities in Sohar and Al Buraimi.
Hafeet Rail is ultimately being constructed as a cross-border logistics system rather than an isolated railway. Freight trains are planned to carry more than 15,000 tonnes per journey, while passenger trains are envisaged at speeds of up to 200 km/h, linking the physical railway with ports, industrial areas and logistics networks on either side of the border.
Oman’s domestic road programme is expanding at the same time, particularly around the increasingly congested Muscat metropolitan area.
8. Muscat Expressway Expansion, Oman
In February 2026, Oman’s Projects, Tenders and Local Content Authority approved the award of the Muscat Expressway expansion between the Qurum Natural Park interchange and Halban. The project is valued at more than OMR157.2 million, approximately $408 million at prevailing exchange rates.
The works extend beyond carriageway widening. The programme includes upgrading the Qurum Natural Park and Seih Al-Maleh roundabouts into signalised intersections, expanding the road from Seih Al-Maleh to Halban Interchange and connecting it with Al Batinah Expressway.
Existing bridge entrances and exits will generally gain an additional lane, taking them to two lanes in each direction, while a direct exit is planned on Al Rusayl Bridge for traffic travelling from Muscat towards Burj Al Sahwa Roundabout.
The project is being delivered on one of the capital area’s principal routes rather than a new alignment, making traffic staging and integration with existing structures central to the work. It also forms part of a broader group of road improvements being undertaken as Muscat’s urban area continues to expand westwards.
The Gulf dominates the current MENA construction pipeline, but some of the most intensive tunnelling is taking place much further west.
9. Cairo Metro Line 4, Egypt
Few projects on this list can match Cairo Metro Line 4 for concentrated underground activity.
Phase 1 extends approximately 19 km with 17 stations, of which 16 are underground. The alignment runs from the western side of Greater Cairo past the Grand Egyptian Museum and pyramid district through Giza before continuing towards Fustat.
By June 2026, Egypt’s National Authority for Tunnels reported that six tunnel boring machines were being used concurrently, a first for the country. Civil and electromechanical construction involves Arab Contractors, Orascom Construction, Concord, Petrojet and Hassan Allam Construction. A Mitsubishi-Orascom consortium is handling systems, track and depot works, while Mitsubishi is supplying 23 trains, the first of which arrived in May 2026.
Japanese finance is central to the programme. JICA has provided successive official development assistance loans, including ¥100 billion agreed in 2023 and a further ¥100 billion loan agreement in September 2025. Earlier financing included a ¥41 billion tranche signed in 2022.
Construction beneath Cairo brings its own complications. Dense development, utilities, groundwater and existing buildings leave little margin for uncontrolled ground movement. An incident near King Saleh station in early 2026, following the rupture of a water main, required ground injection, structural monitoring and the precautionary evacuation of nearby buildings.
TBM advance rates tell only part of the construction story. Ground behaviour, buried services, instrumentation and the buildings above the tunnel can dictate progress just as decisively as the machine at the face.
Further west, Morocco’s railway programme replaces dense urban tunnelling with another kind of civil engineering scale: hundreds of kilometres of high-speed alignment, major earthworks, bridges and viaducts.
10. Kenitra-Marrakech High-Speed Rail, Morocco
Morocco’s extension of its high-speed railway from Kenitra towards Marrakech is one of the region’s most extensive railway construction programmes.
ONCF puts the infrastructure and equipment investment for the high-speed extension at approximately MAD53 billion, within a wider MAD96 billion national railway programme. Its technical planning documents describe a high-speed corridor of roughly 430 km designed for operation at up to 320 km/h, involving around 80 million cubic metres of earthworks, approximately 400 rail and road bridges and some 45 km of viaducts and covered trenches.
The contracting structure spreads the work across Moroccan, Chinese and European groups. Colas subsidiaries secured three contracts worth nearly €430 million covering civil engineering, track, catenary and substations. GTR is responsible for one civil engineering lot, while Colas Rail is delivering railway systems and associated works.
Other major civil packages have gone to contractors including China Railway No. 4 Engineering, Shandong Hi-Speed Engineering Construction and Moroccan companies. Jet Contractors has secured civil engineering work as well as the contract for the Hassan II Grand Stadium station, while further station and infrastructure packages remained in procurement during 2026.
Financing continues to develop alongside construction. In July 2026, the African Development Bank approved €205 million to support rail infrastructure development on the Kenitra-Marrakech corridor.
Morocco’s co-hosting of the 2030 FIFA World Cup creates a firm programme milestone for railway, station and associated urban transport works, but the investment sits within a much broader expansion of the national railway system. Extending Al Boraq south towards Marrakech connects more of Morocco’s principal economic and population corridor to high-speed rail, giving the infrastructure a role well beyond the tournament.
Construction Moves Ahead of the Conversation
What these projects share is execution. Finance has been secured on several schemes, contractors have mobilised, TBMs are underground, precast segments are being manufactured and bridges, stations and road structures are taking shape. Others, notably Dubai’s Fourth Corridor, are approaching the procurement stages that will determine who delivers the next wave of work.
That gives the Roads, Bridges & Tunnels MENA Conference a particularly relevant setting. Its programme includes tunnel boring and underground construction, resilient road materials, infrastructure finance, intelligent transport systems and preventive maintenance, with Abu Dhabi Mobility, Oman’s Ministry of Transport, Communications and Information Technology and other regional authorities involved.
Those subjects are no longer theoretical regional ambitions. Across Dubai, Riyadh, Muscat and Cairo, through the mountains between Oman and the UAE and along Morocco’s emerging high-speed railway, they can already be measured in tunnel segments, bridge piers, earthworks and kilometres of new infrastructure.
Key Industry Questions
- Which of these projects has the largest disclosed investment? Among the projects compared here, Morocco’s Kenitra-Marrakech high-speed railway has an infrastructure and equipment allocation of approximately MAD53 billion, while Dubai Metro Blue Line is valued at AED20.5 billion. Direct comparison is complicated by different project scopes and currencies.
- Which projects involve the most significant tunnelling? Dubai Metro Blue Line includes 15.5 km underground, Riyadh Metro’s Red Line extension includes approximately 7.1 km of tunnel, Cairo Metro Line 4 Phase 1 has 16 underground stations, and Dubai Loop is being developed principally as a tunnel network.
- Who is building Dubai Loop? The Boring Company is the principal implementation partner with Dubai RTA. Parsons and Aecom have also been appointed for programme, design review and construction supervision roles.
- How is Hafeet Rail being financed? The project has secured approximately $1.5 billion in project financing from a consortium of regional and international banks.
- How advanced is Hafeet Rail? Hafeet Rail reported the 238 km Oman-UAE connection as 40% complete in April 2026.
- Which project has the greatest immediate procurement potential? Dubai’s New Fourth Corridor is particularly notable because it was approved in September 2026 and detailed contracting for the wider programme is still developing.
- How many TBMs are working on Cairo Metro Line 4? Egypt’s National Authority for Tunnels reported six machines operating concurrently on Phase 1 in June 2026.
- When is the Roads, Bridges & Tunnels MENA Conference? The third edition takes place on 11 and 12 November 2026 at Al Habtoor Grand Resort in Dubai.
Strategic Takeaways
- Underground construction is becoming a routine component of major MENA transport programmes rather than a specialist exception.
- Large projects are increasingly divided among international and domestic civil contractors, railway specialists, systems suppliers and programme managers.
- Cross-border infrastructure such as Hafeet Rail is tying construction investment directly to ports, freight flows and industrial development.
- Recently approved programmes such as Dubai’s Fourth Corridor retain significant procurement potential even as other major schemes move deeper into construction.
- Dense urban projects are increasing demand for utility management, ground monitoring, precast systems, temporary works, traffic management and specialist tunnelling expertise.
