BAHRAIN'S largest city resort Durrat Al Bahrain (DAB) yesterday announced the appointment of Great Lakes Nass, a joint venture company of Great Lakes Dredge & Dock and The Nass Group, as the dredging contractor for the ambitious $1 billion project.
Great Lakes Nass has been awarded the $105 million contract to complete the land reclamation of over six million square metres of sea, expected to be completed within 26 months.
The contract was signed at Durrat Al Bahrain premises by Yousif Taqi, Chairman of DAB and Abdullah Nass, Chairman of The Nass Group.
DAB is equally owned by both the Government of Bahrain and Kuwait Finance House (KFH). Great Lakes Nass will commence physical creation of the project in November.
"Great Lakes Nass was appointed after undertaking an extensive short-listing and tender process involving some of the world's leading dredging and reclamation construction companies. With the local and international knowledge they have demonstrated, we firmly believe that they will successfully complete the project within the agreed timeframe," said DAB's Deputy General Manager Jassim Al Jowder.
DAB is the second project in Bahrain to be awarded to Great Lakes Nass after its success in land reclamation for the Khalifa bin Salman Port and Industrial Area in Hidd. The joint venture combines the dredging expertise of Great Lakes with the proven capability of Nass Group in carrying out the rock protection works. Nass Group placed over 3.5 million tonnes of rock protection for the Hidd project.
"We are greatly looking forward to meet and further exceed the developers' expectations after starting the dredging next month. We will employ state-of-the-art machinery including the Dredge Carolina, which will be transported from Hidd. The project is our fourth contract in Bahrain and we are delighted to work within a consortium of world-class contractors and services providers," said John O'Brien, Division Manager for the Middle East, Great Lakes Dredge & Dock.
"In the company's 110 years of business, Great Lakes has never failed to complete a contracted project. The company has projects under way throughout the US as well as Bahrain, Egypt, Ghana, India, Bangladesh, Uruguay, and Panama. It maintains a division office in some of the major capitals across the Middle East, including Manama."
DAB, a 20km sq area of desert and sea, is one and half larger than downtown Manama. It is set to become the country's largest city resort. Its stunning design has been provided by WS Atkins, the renowned engineering design and consultancy firm, and is the vision of Tom Wright, WS Atkins Director of Architecture, who is renowned for international projects.
DAB will consist of 13 different islands, with over 2,000 villas and more than 2,000 apartments, luxury hotels, restaurants, promenades, shopping centers, marina, spas, sports facilities and an 18-hole golf course.
© Bahrain Tribune 2004
