HASSAN Ebrahim Bukamal & Sons, popularly known by its trade name Bukamal, has unveiled plans to strengthen its presence beyond Bahrain in other GCC markets, where it has established good contacts and maintains strong relationships with the existing players.

ROOTS Steel International Company (Roots Steel Group) has acquired two Sharjah-based companies – Ginco Steel and Polyco Company, both wholly-owned subsidiaries of Bank of Sharjah.

RENOWNED UK architects Foster + Partners has won a KD19 million ($66.7 million) contract from Kuwait’s General Directorate of Civil Aviation to design a new passenger terminal at the Kuwait International Airport.

A THREE-WAY agreement aimed at developing an industrialisation strategy for six cities of Saudi Arabia has been signed.

AL KIFAH Construction Equipment (KiCE), the marketing arm of Al Kifah Batching Plant Factory, has launched a new patented technology to upgrade batching plant.

QATAR crane rental company United Equipment has provided a solution for construction of Doha’s 59-storey Silhouette Tower, following a change of contractor, by installing a new Liebherr self-climbing tower crane on the 47th-storey, ensuring significant cost and time savings.

A GROUP led by KPMG and including SNR Denton and Fitchner has won a $1.7 million advisory contract for the Al Ghubrah independent water project (IWP) being built by Oman Power and Water Procurement Company (OPWP). Development of the IWP will be accelerated to ensure that potable water from the plant becomes available by 2013.

QATAR Steel Company and Siemens VAI have signed a contract to build a steel plant with a capacity of 1.1 million tonnes per year. The plant will be located adjacent to the existing plant in Qatar’s industrial city of Mesaieed, which produces about 2 million tonnes of steel per year.

Sabic project one step closer SAUDI Basic Industries Corporation (Sabic) and affiliates of ExxonMobil Chemical announced that work on their proposed elastomers joint venture project has moved fully into the front-end engineering and design (Feed) stage.

DOHALAND will award QR6 billion ($1.65 billion) worth of contracts on the QR20 billion ($5.5 billion) Musheireb project in the next few years, according to Issa Al Mohannadi, its CEO. The state-owned company redeveloping part of Qatar’s capital also plans to raise QR9 billion ($2.

TRADEARABIA, a leading portal for business information and trade news covering the Gulf and Middle East, has launched a dedicated online section delivering the latest project data and intelligence to subscribers. The new Project Reports section, available for purchase and download at http://projectreports.tradearabia.

CONSTRUCTION work on a remote aircraft apron project at the Bahrain International Airport is progressing in full swing, according to an official close to the project.

WORK  on the RO77 million ($200 million) Phase Two expansion of the Sohar steel plant has started, with the 1.5-million-tonne-capacity plant having come on stream in January. Phase Two development will add an electric arc furnace, ladle furnace and continuous casting machine (billet/bloom caster) to the project.

ALARGAN Projects Company has won an award in the real estate category at a summit held in the Saudi capital. Alargan’s Cordoba residential project, featuring all vital facilities and services, secured the Best Mixed-Use Development Award at the Saudi Infrastructure Summit held in February.

ARAB Bank Group, a Jordan-based public shareholding company, has provided a loan of RO157.8 million ($410 million) towards construction of Phase Three of Muscat International Airport in Oman.

ABB has secured an order worth approximately QR109.2 million ($30 million) from the Qatar General Electricity and Water Corporation (Kahramaa) to construct two underground substations for the  Musheireb project in Doha.

CONSTRUCTION will begin in the first half of this year on one of Qatar’s major new port projects – the $4.5 billion Phase One of the New Doha Port, south of Al Wakra township.

TIGER Profiles has begun supply of its floor deck profiles to Qatar World Trade Centre in Doha, an iconic 50-storey structure with a unique architectural form.

DANUBE Buildmart will embark on an expansion plan in the coming years with the support of its Dh50-million ($13 million) manufacturing facility located in Techno Park, Dubai. Spanning 1.3 million sq ft, the new facility will be completed in phases and is expected to start operations soon.