A JOINT venture of Italy-based international construction firm Astaldi and Turkish contractor Ozkar Insaat Sanayi ve Ticaret has won a contract to upgrade the Bidbid-Sur highway in the Sharqiya region of Oman at a cost of RO125.23 million ($325.3 million).

The project will transform the single-lane Bidbid-Sur carriageway into an all-weather dual motorway with a design speed of 120 km per hour.

The country’s Ministry of Transport and Communications is overseeing the dualisation of the Bidbid-Sur motorway, which is one of the most important roads linking the capital region with major wilayats in the Sharqiya region and beyond.

The Astaldi-Ozkar JV will dualise a roughly 40-km stretch of the existing carriageway extending from Sarur in Samayil wilayat to a point beyond Wadi Al Aqq. This segment represents Package 1A of Section One of the dualisation project which, when completed in stages, will cover the entire 250-km length of the carriageway.

According to officials, the Sarur-Wadi Al Aqq section represents the most challenging stretch of the project. Significant stretches of the dual road will be constructed along new, elevated alignments that steer clear of the many wadi channels crisscrossing the hilly countryside. Rainy spells often turn these wadis into raging rivers that make the present carriageway impassable in many places.

In keeping with the international-class standard of the motorway, the new dualised road will run along a streamlined alignment, thus doing away with the sharp bends and curving gradients characteristic of the existing carriageway.

In addition, as an all-weather carriageway, five major wadi bridges, as well as a number of smaller bridges and culverts, will be built at key points along the stretch.

Some of these wadi bridges, of lengths ranging from 350 to 400 m, will be built at elevations varying from 40 to 80 m above ground level. For environmental reasons, all excavation work, which represents a significant component of the project cost – will be undertaken without the use of explosives.

The contract also calls for massive volumes of earth excavation and filling, thus adding to the overall project cost.

Section One – Package IA – accounts for more than half of the total allocation of RO240 million ($623.4 million) made by the government towards the Bidbid-Sur project.

Design and construction supervision work linked to the Bidbid-Sur dualisation project is being shared by well-known engineering consultancy firms Cowi & Partners and Dar Al Handasah. While Cowi has been contracted as consultant for the 143-km Section Two of the carriageway from Ibra to Sur, the remaining length is handled by Dar Al Handasah. For Naples-headquartered Astaldi, the Bidbid-Sur contract marks the Italy-based construction giant’s maiden foray into Oman’s burgeoning construction sector.