New start date for $3bn causeway work

Work on the $3 billion Qatar-Bahrain Causeway is now set to start this summer with a five-year timeline, it was revealed on Tuesday.

“The delay is to incorporate provisions for passenger and freight rail tracks,” Qatari Diar Vinci Construction (QDVC) CEO Gerald Mille said in comments published by Qatar daily Gulf News. Work had originally been scheduled to start this month.

There will be two rail tracks on the left side of the 40km causeway, one for a passenger train with a maximum speed of 160km/hr and the other for a 120km/hr freight train.

“The inclusion of the rail tracks necessitated the relocation of the navigation channel also,” he said on the sidelines of the Qatar Projects 2009 conference.

“It was in August last year that we received the directive to include railway tracks as part of the causeway,” Mille added.

The causeway, described as the world’s longest linking two countries, is to stretch from Qatar’s Ras Ushairjj, just 5km from Zubarah to Bahrain’s Askar village.

QDVC is a joint venture between Qatari Diar Real Estate Investment Company and France’s Vinci Construction Grands Projects with the former holding a 51 percent stake.