Oman re-tenders rail project
National Railway Project tenders to be floated shortly, government officials say
Oman’s Ministry of Transport and Communications has announced tenders for the Sultanate’s multibillion dollar National Railway Project are to be floated soon.
The first tender will be for the appointment of a consultant to undertake the preliminary design of the 1,061km rail network, to be followed by two other tenders, the first of which will be for ‘Detailed Design and Build,’ while the second will be for ‘Project Management Consultancy and Supervision Services,’ said Salim bin Said al Amri, the ministry’s Deputy Director General of Roads and Head of the Railway Team.
The ministry is aiming for the completion of the design by end of 2014, and the construction phase to start in the third quarter of 2014, he said.
“We hope to complete Phase 1 (roughly 1,061 kilometres) by end 2018 in line with a target set by the GCC states in this regard,” al Amri added.
The current list of contenders for the first package includes a partnership of AECOM (US), Cowi& Partners, DBI (Germany); Consortium Systra (France), Parsons (US) and Atkins (UK); a Group headed by Mott MacDonald (UK), ItalferrSpA (Italy) and WorleyParsons (Australia).
A partnership of eight Korean firms led by Korea Rail; and a Consortium led by Prointec Group (Spain) and including the Spanish-based engineering entities Idom, Eurostudies and ALG, are also in contention for the project.
