Dubai invites metro extension interest
23 October 2023
Dubai’s Roads & Transport Authority (RTA) has invited contractors to express their interest by 24 November in bidding for the contract to expand the 90-kilometre Dubai Metro scheme.
The planned Blue Line will extend the existing Red and Green lines of the metro.
The Green Line extension will commence from its current terminus at Creek Station in the Jadaf area. It will cross over to the Dubai Creek Harbour development and continue through Ras al-Khor, International City, Dubai Silicon Oasis and Academic City before concluding near the Desert Rose project. The line will have 11 stations.
The Red Line extension will connect its existing terminus in Rashidiya to Mirdif City Centre and continue through Mirdif and Warqaa before joining the Green Line extension in International City.
The project was put on hold during the Covid-19 pandemic and was reactivated in early 2022, when UK-based Atkins and Grimshaw, US-based Parsons and France’s Egis restarted design work.
MEED previously reported that Dubai's RTA is expected to issue tender documents for the expansion of Dubai Metro in the fourth quarter of the year.
In October 2022, MEED reported that groups interested in bidding for the project had started to form. They included France’s Alstom with Spain’s FCC and Beijing-based China State Construction Engineering Corporation; Germany’s Siemens with India’s Larsen & Toubro, the local Alec and Belgium’s Besix; and China Railway Construction Corporation (CRCC) with China Civil Engineering Construction Company (CCECC).
Two billion commuters
Since its public launch on 9 September 2009, the number of riders that have used the Dubai Metro network has exceeded 2 billion, according to the RTA.
The Red Line has transported 1.342 billion commuters, while the Green Line has served 673.531 million passengers.
In 2022, the average daily number of riders on Dubai Metro exceeded 616,000.
The metro extension is part of Dubai’s plans to improve residents' quality of life by cutting journey times as outlined in its newly approved 20-minute city policy.
The last metro project to be completed in Dubai was Route 2020, which connected the Red Line to the Expo 2022 Dubai site. The AED10.6bn ($2.9bn) contract to design and build the line was awarded to a consortium of Alstom, Spain’s Acciona and Turkiye’s Gulermak.
Dubai Metro has also significantly impacted the real estate market, particularly properties within a 15-minute walking distance from metro stations. According to a recent report by CBRE, these properties tend to outperform the broader real estate market in terms of both property value and rental performance.
Further extensions are expected to create new opportunities for businesses and residents alike.
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Algeria’s state railway project developer, Agence Nationale d’Etudes et de Suivi de la Realisation des Investissements Ferroviaires (Anesrif), has invited national and international contractors to bid for the construction of a 310-kilometre (km) railway line between Hotel Station and Moulay Lahcen Station.
The planned line is a key segment of the proposed railway corridor connecting El-Menea, In-Salah and Tamanrasset across the southern wilayas of In-Salah and Tamanrasset.
The tender notice was issued on 12 October, with bids due by 10 November.
The tender is open to single contractors and consortiums. To qualify, single firms must have executed at least 200km of new railway lines or track-doubling works since 2010, with accepted project certificates covering sections of at least 100km, along with a cumulative 800 metres of railway bridges with individual spans exceeding 30 metres.
Bidders must also provide at least two rail-tamping machines, two ballast regulators, and a project director with an engineering degree and at least five years of railway construction management experience.
From a commercial and classification perspective, single bidders and consortium leaders must hold a category-nine (IX) professional qualification in public works.
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Offers must be accompanied by a bid bond exceeding 1% of the total bid value for submissions exceeding $7.4m, with proposals remaining valid for 90 days beyond the submission date.
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Joint venture wins $246m RCRC bridges contract16 October 2026

A joint venture of local contractor Mofarreh Group and Turkey-based Gulsan Holding has won an estimated SR923m ($246m) contract from the Royal Commission for Riyadh City (RCRC) to construct a series of grade-separated steel flyovers across the capital.
The contract, known as Package 2 (Groups 2 and 3), is part of RCRC’s urgent bridges programme under the wider project to build steel bridges at 10 junctions across Riyadh.
The works have a 12-month execution timeline to fast-track traffic decongestion across major arterial corridors.
The joint venture’s scope covers the engineering and construction of grade-separated steel bridge interchanges across seven key intersections:
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The total length of the flyovers is 8.86 kilometres, excluding Junction IC10.
In addition to the structural steel superstructures, concrete bridge foundations, decks and approach ramps, the contract includes retaining walls, utility diversions, temporary phased traffic arrangements, associated roadworks, drainage networks, roadway lighting, intelligent transportation systems and landscaping.
The client received commercial proposals from several local and international contractors. Other bidders included:
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The urgent bridges initiative is part of Riyadh’s rapid transport infrastructure programme to improve traffic throughput, enhance safety and ease vehicular congestion across central and ring-road corridors ahead of major events, including Expo 2030 and the 2034 Fifa World Cup.
In July, Mofarreh Group and Turkiye’s Gulsan Holding formed a joint venture to bid for and deliver transport infrastructure projects in Riyadh for RCRC.
The joint venture said it will target road, bridge, viaduct and interchange projects.
Mofarreh will provide local market access and operational capacity, while Gulsan will contribute international experience in large-scale transport projects.
The companies said the new venture will support knowledge transfer and localisation, and promote the use of international engineering and construction standards aligned with Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030 infrastructure and sustainability goals.
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Humain tenders 100MW Riyadh AI data centre16 October 2026

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Saudi artificial intelligence infrastructure developer Humain has issued a request for proposals for an engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contract to deliver a 100MW artificial intelligence (AI) data centre facility in Riyadh’s Al-Saad area.
The tender was issued on 17 September, with bids due by 8 November.
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The project also includes an optional expansion phase that could raise total site capacity to 200MW.
The initial 100MW development is split into two equal 50MW phases, structured across two single-storey IT buildings housing four 25MW data halls.
Phase one targets a ready-for-service date by October 2028, followed by phase two in January 2029.
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Adnoc Onshore seeks bids for Bu Hasa field EOR project16 October 2026

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The onshore oil and gas business of Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (Adnoc Onshore) has sought bids from contractors for a key project to increase the oil production capacity of the Bu Hasa oil field, primarily through enhanced oil recovery (EOR) techniques.
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Adnoc Onshore is understood to have issued the tender for the project on 20 September, with an initial technical bid submission deadline of 8 October, according to sources. The client later extended the technical bid submission deadline to 17 October, sources told MEED.
The chosen contractor will execute the project under a hybrid contracting strategy comprising:
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Unless otherwise specified, all activities defined under the contractor’s scope will be deemed included within the lump-sum contract price. This will cover engineering, procurement, construction, testing, pre-commissioning and support to commissioning for a complete and operable system.
At the Bu Hasa field development, three remote degassing stations (RDS-1/2/3) and two satellite stations, Bida Al-Qemzan and Huwaila, are currently in operation. Production from oil wells completed in Shuaiba, Thamama B, Thamama F, Bida Al-Qemzan and Huwaila is routed via individual flowlines to the three remote degassing stations and the Bida Al-Qemzan and Huwaila stations across different parts of the field.
Combined production from the wells at each of these stations is routed to the central degassing stations (CDS) via transfer lines ranging from 16 inches to 24 inches in diameter. In addition, some wells in the central part of the field are connected directly to the CDS.
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Located 200 kilometres south of Abu Dhabi city, Bu Hasa is Adnoc Onshore’s westernmost producing field. It is one of Abu Dhabi's biggest onshore assets, with crude oil production capacity of 650,000 b/d. It is also one of the Adnoc Group’s oldest oil fields, having been discovered in 1962 and in production since May 1965.
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OTTCO issues tender for Oman oil storage park expansion16 October 2026

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Oman Tank Terminal Company (OTTCO) has issued the main tender for a major project related to the expansion of the Ras Markaz crude oil storage complex at Duqm, on the sultanate’s Arabian Sea coast.
The project, titled Trade Bridge, involves the engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) of eight large storage tanks, each with a capacity of 650,000 barrels. This will increase the Ras Markaz terminal’s total storage capacity by 5.2 million barrels.
The project represents the next expansion phase (phase 1.4) of the Ras Markaz oil storage terminal within the Special Economic Zone at Duqm (Sezad).
State-owned OTTCO issued the prequalification notice for the project on 28 July, with contractors submitting initial responses by 4 August and final responses by 19 August, MEED previously reported.
According to sources, OTTCO issued the main tender for EPC works on Project Trade Bridge in the weeks following completion of the prequalification exercise.
The following contractors, among others, are understood to have been prequalified by OTTCO to bid for Project Trade Bridge:
- China Petroleum Pipeline Engineering Company (China)
- China Tianchen Engineering Corporation (China)
- Daqing Oilfield Construction Group Company (China)
- Enppi Muscat (local branch of Egypt-based Enppi)
- Gulf Petrochemical Services & Trading (Oman)
- Hualu Engineering & Technology Company (China)
- Rotary Engineering (Singapore)
- Sinopec Ningbo Engineering Company (China)
OTTCO commissioned the first phase of the Ras Markaz crude oil storage park, covering 10 square kilometres and with a capacity of 26.7 million barrels, in December 2022.
The storage facility has two parts. The first is a marine services area, which includes a floating station for crude imports and exports. This zone is about 7 kilometres offshore and is connected via two 42-inch pipelines and associated facilities.
In water depths of up to 42 metres, the floating station can accommodate very large crude carriers. It is linked to four main pumps that transfer crude oil to the storage area, which is located more than 120 metres above sea level. OTTCO could add pumps at a later stage to keep pace with future demand for oil storage.
The second part of the storage facility features oil pumping systems, water treatment facilities, reservoirs, power station networks and other associated systems.
Region’s largest oil storage park
OTTCO will build the Ras Markaz oil storage facility in five phases over several years across an area of about 40 square kilometres, for which it signed a land agreement with Sezad in July 2017.
It will be able to hold 200 million barrels of crude a year. Total investment in the scheme is understood to be $5.2bn.
The storage terminal in the first phase of the Ras Markaz facility is connected to the estimated $7bn Duqm refinery and other oil-derivatives production plants at Sezad via a pipeline that will supply crude feedstock to the refinery when required.
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