A JOINT venture between Al Habtoor Leighton Group (HLG) and Al Jaber Engineering has been awarded a QR6.15-billion ($1.7 billion) contract for the design and construction of a highway near Doha, Qatar.

The deal for Package Three of Ashghal’s (Qatar’s Public Works Authority) New Orbital Highway and Truck Route connects the Mesaieed industrial area and the new port project to Salwa Road. It includes a total of approximately 56 km of road works and five main interchanges that will service the projected increase in the area’s traffic.

The design and construction works will take approximately 36 months to complete.

HLG CEO and managing director José Antonio López-Monís said: “The Orbital Highway is a major opportunity for HLG and we are pleased to work in partnership with Al Jaber Engineering to deliver such an important element of national infrastructure for Qatar.”

Meanwhile, as part of its ambitious road development programme in Qatar, Ashghal has also awarded a QR2.187-billion ($600 million) contract to L&T Construction to design and build Al Wakrah Bypass Road.
The order involves the construction of a 11-km road consisting of 10 lanes with scope for four more lanes with additional collec-tors/distributor roads, frontage roads and ramps.

The freeway will provide access to the existing and planned developments via five major interchanges comprising 20 bridges, 13 bicycle over-passes, eight vehicular underpasses, three pedestrian bridges and 736-m-long and 32-m-wide vehicular tunnel works.

State-of-the-art street furniture and other related utility works for potable water, treated sewer effluent, drainage, electrical, intelligent trans-portation system, irrigation and landscaping are part of the scope. The project is scheduled to be completed in 32 months.

Al Wakrah Bypass is a major South-North freeway connecting the existing Al Wakrah-Mesaieed Road. This new freeway will be a continua-tion of an existing major urban North-South high-speed corridor of Doha Expressway. At its southern end, the proposed bypass will inter-sect with the existing Al Wakrah-Mesaieed Road and branch into two directions to the planned Doha Seaport to the south and the Mesaieed industrial area to the west.

Commenting on the order, S N Subrahmanyan, member of the board and senior executive vice-president (infrastructure and construction) of L&T Construction, said: “This is the company’s single largest road order in the international market and is an important turning point in our plans of growing the company’s business in the Middle East region.”

Meanwhile, the Qatar government is expected to sign contracts worth as much as $50 billion this year as it steps up infrastructure spending to host the 2022 Fifa World Cup, the Central Bank said.

The projects will be in the transport, energy and other sectors, said bank governor Sheikh Abdullah bin Saud Al Thani. Qatar has plans to spend some $140 billion on projects including port facilities, railways, stadiums and other infrastructure.