L&T joint venture among bidders for Oman airport deal

Four international firms including a joint venture between India's Larsen & Toubro and Oman's Galfar Engineering have bid for the construction of a new terminal at Muscat's airport. Cypriot construction firm Joannou & Paraskevaides submitted the lowest bid at 746 million rials (USD 1.94 billion), a tender board official told Reuters on Wednesday, declining to be identified.

The joint venture between Larsen and Galfar submitted the highest bid at 950 million rials followed by Bechtel, the largest US engineering firm, which submitted a bid worth 805.7 million rials. A joint venture (JV) between Turkey's TAV Construction and Athens-based Consolidated Contractors Co (CCC) also bid. The deadline for the submissions was on October 26.

French contractor Vinci and Saudi Binladen Group withdrew from the tender, he said. In May, the JV of TAV Construction and CCC won the civil works contract for the airport worth 450 million rials.  The airport currently handles about 4 million passengers a year and will host 12 million passengers when both expansions are completed. Oman is also building airports at Duqm, Ras Al Hadd, Musandam and Sohar.