Contractors

Dutch win Duqm deal

Royal Boskalis Westminster of the Netherlands is poised to start work this month (July) on a $513-million liquid terminal at Duqm port in the Al Wusta region of Oman.

The work will take 32 to 33 months for completion, the Times of Oman reported, citing a top official.

Presently, Royal Boskalis is working on a detailed engineering design and mobilising equipment and materials for construction work, said Lee Chee Khian, the chief executive officer of the Special Economic Zone in Duqm (Sezad).

According to him, the scope of work includes engineering, design, procurement and construction of a liquid berth terminal, which will be operational in 2020.

Various dredging and civil activities will be executed by Boskalis, which include the deepening of the port basin to a depth of 18 m, reclamation of land, construction of a 1-km-long quay wall, a double-berth jetty island and a stone revetment.

The dredging scope will be executed by the new mega cutter Helios, which will be taken into service in mid-2017, and a jumbo hopper and medium-sized trailer suction hopper dredger, he stated.

The liquid terminal, which is linked to the 230,000-barrels-per-day capacity-greenfield refinery project is currently under development near the port, will be large enough to handle the import and export requirements of the refinery.

Duqm Refinery, the $7-billion joint venture between the state-owned Oman Oil Company and Kuwait Petroleum International, is also expected to start operations in 2020.