Tourism boost
Tourism is receiving a fillip with a number of multi-million-dollar resort projects now set to go ahead in the picturesque Sultanate. CLIFFORD FRANTZ reports.
01 December 2002
A number of key infrastructure projects have kept the construction industry going in the sluggish economic climate over the past year.
The sultanate is drawing up new infrastructure plans that will offer further opportunities for the construction industry, according to Hamad bin Suleiman Al Ghraibi, under-secretary at the Ministry of Regional Municipalities, Environment and Water Resources.
During the year, the Tender Board and the Ministry of Transport and Communications tendered a raft of contracts for road works, power and water projects, ports and harbours, and industry-related work.
Local construction firms also saw increased activity in oil and gas projects that aim to increase Oman's oil output and tap its gas reserves.
A key area to watch is housing over the next 10 to 15 years, with 52 per cent of Oman's population being below 15 years of age.
Tourism
A new area of focus for the sultanate's construction firms is tourism projects.
Work is under way on the ambitious Barr Al Jissah resort and several packages are still to be tendered. The estimated $200 million resort is being developed by the local Zubair Corporation and will be managed by the Hong Kong-based Shangri-La Hotels and Resorts Group. The resort is expected to open by 2005.
A $308 million heritage resort is being developed along 12 km of beaches in the Sawadi area of Barka by an Omani-European consortium of Al Sawadi Development and Investment Company and the German Tourism Organisation for Development and Investment.
The Ras Al Sawadi Tourism Complex will include a number of four-star and five-star hotels, chalets, restaurants and other entertainment facilities. The first phase is expected to open in October 2005.
The first phase will have three five-star and two four-star hotels. There will also be two golf courses, one water park, restaurants and leisure facilities.
Near the capital Muscat, work on a new resort along a 7 km stretch of beach is expected to begin in a year. Known as Marsa City, the resort will cover an area of 3 million sq m and include lagoons and man-made islands, a golf course, a shopping mall, hotels, apartments and a business district.
The government has mandated an international consortium to market the beachfront property. The consortium comprises Lebanese real estate consultants Ramco, US firm CB Richard Ellis and its British subsidiary Hillier Parker.
The regional office of CB Richard Ellis in Dubai said more details would be announced soon. Oman recently allowed 75-year leases on public land for tourism projects.
Other tourism projects include a new five-star hotel - named the Chedi Muscat - in the Al Ghubra area. The RO10.5 million ($27 million) hotel, owned by the newly floated Hotels Management Company International, will have 160 rooms and 40 suites.
The government is also planning to set up a new airport at Ras Al Hadd in the wilayat of Sur.
Meanwhile, a feasibility study on the revamping and expansion of Seeb International Airport is due to be completed by the end of January. The subsequent stages of design will progress immediately thereafter with com construction to commence in the third quarter of next year.
The project is being developed by Oman Airport Management Company (OAMC), a partnership comprising Bahwan Trading Company, British Airport Authority (BAA), Government of Oman, ABB and Oman Aviation Services Company (OAS).
Industry
Oman is seeking a new partner for a joint venture to build the Salalah Port Free Trade Zone, after US construction firm Hillwood Development pulled out of the project. Hillwood was expected to start building the first phase of the zone this year, which would have cost $90 million. The project was to be built next to Salalah port.
Diplomats blamed the pullout on bureaucratic issues and said the move was a major blow to the project and also to Oman's efforts to attract foreign capital.
Other industry-related projects, however, are going head.
A $1 billion fertiliser project in Sur for the Oman-India Fertiliser Company (Omifco) is now going ahead despite a number of delays. Consolidated Contractors Company (CCC) was recently awarded a contract to build a marine terminal and seawater cooling system which forms part of the project. The plant is expected to go on stream only in early 2005.
Sohar is set to become the industrial centre of the Sultanate. In line with this plan, the government recently inked a contract to build a seawater intake and return system there - the first big infrastructure project of its kind for the gas-based industry sector.
The RO21.9 million ($57 million) contract went to Sezai Turkes Fezyzi Akkaya of Turkey and the local Bahwan Contracting Company. The facility, to be completed by end-2004, will include a pumping station providing 334,000 cu m of seawater.
The system will meet the requirements of, among others, the Sohar Refinery project and the fertiliser plant of Sohar International Urea and Chemical Industries ((SIUCI).
The contract to build the fertiliser plant for SIUCI - promoted by Sheikh Suhail Salem Bahwan - has been awarded to Germany's Uhde. The plant will cost more than $600 million, making it the largest industrial investment by an individual in a GCC country. It will have a capacity of 2,000 tonnes per day (tpd) of ammonia and 3,500 tpd of granular urea. Work is expected to start in the first half of next year with a 35-month completion schedule.
Also in Sohar, Parsons International was picked to provide design and construction supervision services for the Sohar industrial area's main infrastructure. The client, Sohar Industrial Ports Company, is a joint venture between the Omani government and Rotterdam Port Management.
Ports
Turkey's STFA Construction won a contract to extend the quay wall at the Sohar Industrial Port complex. The RO9.59 million contract under the second phase of the port's development calls for the extending the quay wall by 810 m to about 1.65 km. The wall is earmarked for the exclusive use of a fertiliser plant and a aluminium smelter project planned alongside the port.
Separately, STFA is also building a 850-m long quay under a RO12.84 million contract as part of the first phase package.
The Omani government has invested around RO100 million on the basic infrastructure at the industrial port.
A RO20 million multipurpose port and dry dock project planned at Duqm in Wusta is one of the biggest infrastructure projects in the region. The UK's Posford Duvivier won the RO1.62 million contract to undertake the design, supervision, and operation and management studies on the project.
Envisaged in the first phase is a 3.5 km-long breakwater and about 500 m of quay wall. The harbour basin will be dredged to a depth of 10 m, to allow only small and medium-size vessels to enter. The project is slated for completion by 2005.
The other key projects awarded during the year were a RO11 million contract to expand the Khasab and Kumzar ports in the governorate of Musandam.
The contract was awarded by Ministry of Transport and Telecommunications to the local Galfar Engineering and Contracting. The project is expected to be completed in early 2004.
Work at the Khasab port covers extension of a breakwater to a length of 560 m; construction of 440-m-long fish harbour breakwater, construction of 330-m-long quay wall; dredging the harbour basin to -8.5 m CD; reclamation of 60 hectares area; installation of pontoons and access bridges and provision of navigational aids.
The Kumzar Port work involves the construction of a breakwater and two-storey building and associated works; installation of pontoon and access bridge; and, provision of navigational aids. The consultant is WS Atkins.
Galfar also won a RO1.92 million contract to build a fishing jetty in Lima, Musandam.
The jetty will be 8 m deep with a 370-m long breakwater and a smaller breakwater. A total area of 10,000 sq m is devoted for the project.
Other developments include a RO9.59 million fishing harbour in the wilayat of Sohar and and the RO5.5 million Al Ashkharah fishing jetty in the wilayat of Ja'alan Bani Bu Ali.
Power & water
The RO40.118 million ($104.26 million) Al Masarrat water project in the Dhahirah region is being extended to six adjacent areas.
The Al Masarrat project is the first large-scale municipal water supply network fed solely by groundwater in the sultanate and one of the largest of its kind in the GCC region.
The RO5.3 million ($13.76 million) contract calls for the extension of the water supply scheme that was completed earlier this year. The new extension will widen the scope of the project by another 114 km of water pipeline passing through six nearby areas.
The earlier Al Masarrat contract, worth RO26.56 million, provided a potable water supply to the wilayats of lbri, Dank and Yanqul. The contractor, Egypt's Societe Egyptienne d'Enterprises, built distribution pipelines and tanker filling points at strategic locations in the project areas.
Agreements were signed with local companies to drill water wells and build water reservoirs and distribution networks in Sharqiyah, Dakhiliyah, Batinah and Dhahirah. Minor works included drilling water wells and setting up distribution networks to various villages.
In Sharqiyah, two components of a contract for the second stage of the sands water project were awarded to Hasan Juma Backer (HJB) Trading and Contracting and Target.
The work involves the installation of 268 km of secondary pipelines for the water supply network. The main component of the RO5.36 million contract covering two-thirds of the water distribution system has gone to HJB while the remaining one-third of the work will be handled by Target. The project will be completed by mid-2003.
Hasan Juma Backer also bagged a RO2 million contract to lay a drinking water pipeline in the Bausher planned area in the Muscat governorate. The project also involves construction of a 8,000 cu m reinforced concrete service reservoir and associated works at Bausher upper reservoir compound pumping station in the existing Bausher (Ghubrah North) reservoir compound and booster pump station in Bausher heights.
In the power and desalination sector, the $411 million Barka power and desalination plant is likely to be commissioned early next year, according to officials. The US' AES Corp and a local company are developing the unit on a build, own and operate (BOO) basis with a 15-year concession from the Omani government. When completed, the unit will have capacity of 427.36 MW of power and 20 million gallons per day of water.
Fresh moves are awaited on the proposed RO230 million Muscat private wastewater project. The government is re-evaluating its strategy on the project, following the exit of an international partner. Work on the project was expected to begin last year and 49 per cent of the company's equity was likely to be raised from the public within five years.
Other contracts were for work on the Al Khuwaimah power plant in Sharqiyah, a wastewater station at Rustaq town, and a RO3.613 million contract to supply water to Al Ma'abailah in the Muscat governorate.
Oil & gas
The green light has been given for a third-train expansion at Oman LNG. An engineering-procurement-construction (EPC) contract is due to be awarded soon with the first shipment set to be delivered in January 2006. The third train will increase the output of the LNG plant at Qalhat by 50 per cent, raising capacity to around 10 million tonnes per annum. The project cost has been estimated at $600 million.
Meanwhile, plans are going ahead for a 48-km pipeline that will link the new Fahud-Sohar pipeline to Al Buraimi on the border with the UAE.
The approval for the project depends on the Omani government reaching a final agreement for the supply of its gas as feedstock to a planned power and desalination plant in the UAE emirate of Fujairah. The client is the state-owned Oman Gas Company (OGC).
The pipeline will help link Oman's gas network with the regional gas grid proposed by Abu Dhabi's Dolphin Energy Limited (DEL).
Majority state-owned Petroleum Development Oman (PDO) has signed a $100 million contract for the construction of an upstream gas plant with a joint venture between SNC Lavalin of Canada and the local Al Hassan Engineering. The team won the Saih Nihayda contract in an online tender, the first of its kind in the region.
Roads
Oman continues to boost its road network in the interior regions. Recently, it signed 10 contracts for the construction of internal roads in various wilayats. The contracts call for the construction of roads in Al Suwaiq, Al Awabi, Barka, Bahla, Mudhaibi and Khabourah as well as reconstructing the road from Saham roundabout to Saih Al Tayiebat junction and constructing a mountain road to Siwa and Mibam villages in the niyabat of Tiwi in the wilayat of Sur.
The Sultanate also signed new contracts worth a total RO19.56 million ($50.8 m million) for the maintenance of dirt and asphalt roads in various areas in the country. The contracts were awarded to the Hasan Juma Backer, Desert Line Company, Khaleej Oman Company and Al Nahdha Al Omaniah Maintenance Company.
Among other major road projects given the green light were two contracts worth RO19.5 million for new roads in the Dhahirah region. Omani Contractors Union Company will construct the 142-km long Tanaam-Ramlat Khailah road, while Galfar Engineering and Contracting Company will build the 114-km dual carriageway road parallel to the existing Ibri-Hafait road. The projects will be completed by the end of 2004.
Malik bin Sulaiman al Maamari, the Minister of Transport, stressed the importance of the project as the Tanaam-Ramlat Khailah road would help transporting pilgrims and goods between the Sultanate and Saudi Arabia while the Ibri-Hafait road would help increase trade exchange between the Sultanate and the UAE.
Other projects
The hospital will be equipped with modern facilities, including a dialysis unit. In addiiton, a RO2.5 million speciality hospital will be built in Sur in Al Sharqiyah region.
