AUSTRIA-BASED construction company Strabag says it has won a contract worth Dh494.14 million ($134.6 million) to build parts of the new Khalifa Port in Abu Dhabi.

The construction will be carried out by a Strabag subsidiary, Ed Zueblin, in association with local partner Al Jaber Transport and General Contracting. The Strabag firm will be the lead manager in the consortium, the company said. The overall investment in the new port is Dh1.04 billion ($283 million). Construction was scheduled to start last month and be completed in August 2012.
The new Khalifa Port will be built some 60 km outside Abu Dhabi and will replace the existing Mina Zayed in the capital’s centre.
Strabag’s subsidiary will construct 25 buildings in the project, among them a control centre, office building, hospital, a fire department, warehouses and the entire infrastructure over 85 sq m.
Strabag chairman Hans Peter Haselsteiner said he looks at the new contract as an indication that “we can break into the Middle East market.”
One of the company’s latest orders came from Saudi Arabia to construct buildings and a factory facility for the port and the refinery of Jubail.
In Oman, Strabag recently received a $96.8-million order to build two airports, one in Sohar and the other in Adam.
In Abu Dhabi, Strabag is building an expansion of oil refining company Takreer’s facilities for $121.3 million. It is also building parts of the new Shaikh Zayed Desert Learning Centre in Al Ain, a massive development that comes with a zoo and hundreds of villas.