First Saudi THAAD sites expected to be completed in 2026

Saudi Arabia's future Terminal High Altitude Area Defense sites. (Janes)

The first four sites for Saudi Arabia's Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) systems are expected to be completed by the end of 2026 and all seven by April 2028, according to a document released on 15 August by the US Army Corps of Engineers as part of a request for proposal (RFP).

The RFP was released to find a contractor to monitor construction projects in Saudi Arabia that were listed in the document. It gave the estimated completion date for a storage facility for THAAD ballistic missile interceptors at Al-Kharj in central Saudi Arabia as January 2025 and the first battery site at Ras al-Ghar on the kingdom's Gulf coast as February 2026. This will be followed by the battery sites at Yanbu and Taif in the west and King Khalid Military City (KKMC) in the north later that year.

The estimated completion dates for the fifth and sixth THAAD battery sites at Tabuk in the northwest and Ras Tanajib on the Gulf coast are March and September 2027, respectively. The seventh and final battery site in Riyadh is expected to be completed in April 2028.

The document also listed the infrastructure projects to support the Saudi navy's new Multi-Mission Surface Combatant (MMSC) frigates, which will be based at King Abdulaziz Naval Base in Al-Jubail on the Gulf coast, where dredging is expected to be completed in September 2023.

However, the January 2022 estimated start date given for the dredging indicated the document is out of date, and at least some of the timelines have since slipped as the contract was awarded to AICI-Archirodon Joint Venture in February 2022.