Saudi Arabia's Jeddah Tower work is facing a major hurdle: Super El Niño

The construction team behind Saudi Arabia’s Jeddah Tower, which is expected to surpass the UAE’s Burj Khalifa as the world’s tallest building in just over a year and a half, is reportedly facing a hurdle: Super El Niño.

Designed by architects Adrian Smith and Gordon Gill and constructed by the Saudi Binladin Group, the Jeddah Tower will climb to 1,000 meters high once completed.  

Work on the tower began in 2013 before it was suspended in 2018. At that time, the tower had 60 floors already constructed. The plan was to

According to Saudi Binladin Group senior executive project director Ian Norman Miller, the Jeddah Tower is projected to surpass the Burj Khalifa sometime around the third quarter of 2028. He told US-based Newsweek that he's "completely confident" that the tower will be finished by 2028, but would face a hurdle in the from of Super El Niño wind, which could force the team to pause the work for a week or two. Scientists warn that the world is on course for its hottest year on record as the planet is hit with warming from climate change and El Niño. They had warned that a rapidly strengthening El Niño could have consequences far beyond the Pacific, including for the Middle East.

“This summer we did have a long period where we had to go quite slowly. But once the wind died down in the middle of August, we really sped up, we caught up. So, as soon as the wind was cooperative, we were going like crazy,” he added.

Structural engineer John Peronto, managing principal at Thornton Tomasetti and project manager for the Jeddah Tower, told Newsweek that he cannot predict when the tower will dethrone the Burj Khalifa because there's a lot of interface work that now happens for around the next 200 meters [around 656 feet]. It is at this point that they will start to install the steel for the “sky terrace,” the tower’s viewing platform level.

Meanwhile, another report that appeared in Arabian Business said the construction break has left them with the problem of concrete not standing still. To determine how the structure changed during the years when the work was suspended, the engineers brought in specialists from Russia and deployed the world’s most advanced laser-scanning technology.

The issue before them was the phenomenon called concrete shrinkage, which occurs when it loses moisture. There was also the threat of concrete creep, which is a gradual deformation under sustained loads. So, before the work to start, the engineers needed an accurate picture of the building. This is why they roped in Trimetari Consulting, a specialist company from St. Petersburg.

According to the project team, the survey identified just one minor anomaly across the entire structure and thereby endorsed the original construction work carried out by Saudi Binladin Group between 2014 and 2019 under the leadership of engineer Bassam Nasser, the report added.