Gulf Megaproject Delivery Index

What the research currently shows

The index treats a megaproject as a collection of independently staged components rather than assigning one delivery status to an entire masterplan.

Opening dates, construction starts and contract awards are separate evidence events, reducing the risk of presenting promotional target dates as delivered infrastructure.

Questions this dataset is built to answer

• Which megaproject components have moved from announcement into contracted or physical delivery?
• Which dates are developer targets versus independently evidenced openings?
• How have scope, phase or capital assumptions changed over time?

Source hierarchy

1. Primary official sources, company filings, regulator publications and operator disclosures are preferred for factual dataset records.
2. High-quality wire reporting or specialist trade reporting with an explicit attributable source trail may be used where it adds a dated physical-project fact not available in a practical first-party source.
3. Secondary press, estimates and promotional claims are not promoted into dataset facts unless their status and provenance are clearly labelled.

Data quality controls

• Observation date and publication date are kept distinct where the underlying fact is time-sensitive.
• Announced, planned, under-construction and operating states are not collapsed into one status.
• Parent programme IDs distinguish child-site milestones from wider investment programmes so nested values are not silently double counted.
• Reported results, management guidance, analyst opinions and policy targets remain separate evidence classes.
• Missing values remain missing rather than being filled with inferred or modelled estimates.
• Historical observations preserve earlier stated values and milestones rather than silently replacing them with the newest figure.
• Material revisions are recorded so later updates do not erase the historical basis of an earlier observation.

Dataset methodology

Scope

GBR reporting on large Gulf infrastructure, energy and technology programmes where project delivery, capacity or capital commitment are central.

Inclusion criteria

Records must identify a GCC project, operator or public institution and preserve the distinction between announcement, financing, construction and operation.

Exclusions and limitations

Promotional masterplan claims without a sourced delivery milestone or operating context are excluded from the recurring index.

Revision policy

The index is rebuilt from the publication archive as new qualifying reporting is added. Historical article dates and source attribution remain unchanged; new observations are appended rather than backfilled with inferred facts.

Reuse and attribution

Journalists, researchers and analysts may quote figures with attribution to Gulf Business Review, the dataset version and review date. For substantial republication, chart reuse or data licensing, contact editor@gulfbusinessreview.com.