KBR awarded Qatar-Bahrain causeway contract

US engineering firm KBR has been awarded a contract by the Qatar-Bahrain Causeway Foundation to provide design management, project management and construction management services for the Qatar-Bahrain “friendship bridge”.

"The foundation is pleased to have KBR, an international company of the highest reputation, working in partnership with us to manage this prestigious project,” said foundation chairman Dr Ahmed Hassan Al-Hammadi.

“KBR's Management and Engineering team was selected after two competitive tendering events from among five international companies that expressed interest."

KBR's work on the contract, in association with a UK based engineering firm Halcrow, is expected to begin immediately with the first two phases consisting of management planning and design oversight.

The Qatar Bahrain Causeway is a four-lane, 40km long, highway corridor consisting of roadway sections on reclaimed embankments and natural islands, low level bridge structures and signature suspension bridges.

The project also includes freight and passenger rail lines, providing a direct connection for high speed freight and passenger rail between Qatar and Bahrain.

It is envisioned that the railway will eventually be extended in each direction connecting Istanbul in Turkey to Muscat in Oman.

Construction of the causeway is due to start at the beginning of next year and be completed by 2013.

The US $3 billion construction contract was awarded in May to a consortium of companies led by Paris-based Vinci Construction Grands Projects and Middle East Dredging Company.

Dubbed the "friendship bridge," the Qatar-Bahrain Causeway is symbolic of the longstanding, good relations between the two countries. Once complete, the causeway will be the world's longest marine causeway.

The Qatar Bahrain Foundation is a bi-national institution created in 2006 by the Emir of Qatar and the King of Bahrain for the purpose of developing and managing the causeway project.

KBR is a global engineering, construction and services company supporting the energy, petrochemicals, government services and civil infrastructure sectors.