At least $13.3 billion of government projects are at risk of being cancelled in Saudi Arabia this year due to fiscal pressure and a realignment of government priorities, consultants Faithful+Gould said.

The total value of project awards for 2017 is forecast at $27 billion, and could rise to $32 billion if the Makkah Metro project, which was expected to be awarded in 2016, goes through this year.

"If Makkah Metro is awarded, which I believe will be the case in 2017, admittedly slightly downscaled, then it's 60 percent growth year-on-year," David Clifton, regional development director at Faithful+Gould, told Thomson Reuters Projects.

This would imply that the industry awarded $20 billion in contracts last year, compared with $35.5 billion in 2015.

Faithful+Gould's 2017 forecast assumes another major infrastructure project will be awarded by "exception or royal decree", according to the firm's Construction Intelligence Report on Saudi Arabia which was released on Tuesday. It referred to expenditure under the 2017 state budget that appears to make room for a new major infrastructure scheme.

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