10 firms bid for $11bn canal contracts

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CANAL PROJECT: An artist's impression of how the canal will look.

Contracts to develop the first phase of the Arabian Canal project are to be awarded within weeks after 10 construction companies submitted bids for the $11 billion scheme.

Developer Limitless said on Sunday proposals from local and international firms for the major earthworks were being assessed and contracts would be awarded by the end of August.

Ian Raine, project director for the Arabian Canal said: “Construction of the canal involves one of the biggest excavations ever undertaken in the region. The sheer size of the project means that it will be split into around 10 different packages in total.

“This first package involves the excavation of an 8km stretch of the waterway at the northern end of the inland section of the canal. It will run 2.5km to the west of the Dubai bypass and 5.5km to the east.”

Earlier this month, Limitless announced that pilot excavation work on the 75km canal had shifted more than 1.5mn cubic metres of earth – enough to fill 600 Olympic-size swimming pools.

Raine said test excavations had left a huge hole 700 metres long, 200 metres wide and up to 45 metres deep but that this was less than a quarter of a percent of the total amount of earth to be moved.

He said overall, more than a billion cubic metres will be excavated and re-used to form new landscapes along the waterway.

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