Bauer completes foundation construction on Kingdom Tower

Saudi Bauer Foundation Contractors has completed foundation construction for what will be the tallest building in the world, the Kingdom Tower in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.

Saudi Bauer, which is a subsidiary of Schrobenhausen, Germany-based Bauer Spezialtiefbau, installed extremely long piles for the foundations of the mammoth building. The work involved sinking 72 piles measuring 1.5 m in diameter to a depth of 110 m, 154 1.5 m diameter piles to depths of 49 and 89 m and a 44 1.8 m diameter piles to a depth of 50 m – a total of 270 piles.

The drilling was carried out using BG series rigs produced by sister company Bauer Maschinen. The long piles were installed using two modified Bauer BG 40 rotary drilling rigs specially configured for long Kelly piles.

The Kingdom Tower will be the centrepiece of Kingdom City, a new urban quarter under construction on a 5 km² site in the north of Jeddah. With a planned height of 1,001 m, the tower will overtake the Burj Khalifa in Dubai, UAE, which at 828 m currently holds the record as the world’s tallest building.