CONSTRUCTION work on the much-awaited Bahrain-Qatar Friendship Causeway is expected to begin at the start of next year.

“Mobilisation work is under way,” Bahrain’s Works Minister Fahmi Al Jowder said. “The contractor (US-based Kellogg Brown and Root) has requested the two countries to allocate land on both sides for site works.”
Negotiations are under way regarding the cost and are expected to be finalised by the end of the year, but estimates hover around the $3 billion mark.
Bahrain and Qatar have already allocated a budget of $500 million  to start the 40-km project, Al Jowder said. “Discussions with the contractor (led by Paris-based firm Vinci Construction Grand Projects) will continue throughout this year,” he said. “The two countries are arranging for the finance of the project and it will be shared between them. Work on the project will start in 2010 and it’s expected to take four-and-a-half years (51 months) to complete.”
Al Jowder said a detailed design of the causeway, which incorporates a 13-m-wide railroad bridge, was currently being developed.
The railroad bridge/embankments will be constructed adjacent to the motorway bridge/embankments, which will be 25-m wide and carry a dual carriage way both ways.
Work will first start on the motorway and then in 2012 the civil work will start for the railway bridge, in order to be able to put the rail tracks in place later.