News

It was a pleasure to meet with Naif Alrushaidan, Sr. Industrial Investment Attraction at King Salman Energy Park (SPARK) last week. SPARK spans over 50 km² in the Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia. It provides infrastructure for global investors in various sectors, including oil & gas, refining, petrochemicals, conventional power, non-metallics, renewables, hydrogen, CC(U)S, power storage, grids, water, wastewater, and heating systems.

Additionally, SPARK has two subsidiaries:

• SPARK Utilities: Supplies utilities to investors.
• SPARK Logistics: Manages SPARK’s dry port and logistics zone.

SPARK is a fully owned subsidiary of Saudi Aramco and is one of the strategic projects of Saudi Vision 2030. SPARK’s mission is to offer energy investors world-class infrastructure and services that support the growth of their businesses. SPARK’s vision is to become a leading industrial ecosystem centred on sustainability, connecting the world to opportunities in the Saudi energy sector and beyond.

The energy sector drives the KSA economy, and the Energy Industries Council (EIC) DataStream service is currently tracking approximately 181 major active and future energy sector projects in KSA across upstream oil & gas, refineries, petrochemicals, nuclear, renewables, hydrogen and carbon capture industry sectors representing US$237 billion of opportunities. This is almost one-third of the total GCC US$720 billion market size.

Local manufacturing took centre stage at the iktva2025 Forum & Exhibition in January under the theme of “Ecosystem of Opportunities". This is a key annual event in the KSA calendar.

With such a thriving energy sector, KSA is a focus for many of HFI’s clients.  It has been a pleasure to support ContiTech Industrial Fluid Solutions with their Middle East business expansion and to work with Jan Egil Hjelle, GM Middle East & Africa, Danko Sumonja, Program Manager and Wahid Menacer, Business Development Manager Middle East and Africa. ContiTech, a subsidiary of Continental, offers a comprehensive range of industrial, hydraulic and fire-rated hoses designed and manufactured for the demands and performance requirements of the petroleum sector. Its regional base is at Jafza and a sophisticated network of distributors operate in the Kingdom. The overall Continental Group has sales in the region of €40 billion with 190,000 employees and operations in 55 countries.