Larsen & Toubro shortlisted for $1.4 bn Oman airport

Oman has shortlisted six firms including India’s number one engineering firm Larsen & Toubro, global construction company Bechtel of the US and France’s Vinci for a deal to build a 1.4 billion dollar airport terminal, a tender board official said in Muscat.

Passenger traffic through the Muscat airport, excluding those in transit, increased to about 3.2 million last year, up 18 per cent from the previous year, a leading Omani newspaper has said.

The lowest bidder is a consortium of the local NRI-owned Galfar Engineering & Contracting Company and India’s L&T, the Middle East Economic Digest(MEED) reported last week.

The new project involves building the northern runway, taxiway system, apron, roads, utility buildings and civil works. The new terminal will be connected to the existing terminal by a rail link and the work will be completed by 2011.

The airport formerly known as the Seeb International Airport handles 4.5 million passengers a year but will have a capacity for 12 million passengers once the work is completed. Additional phases could raise the capacity to 48 million passengers a year.