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Joint venture selected for Oxagon port work

4 October 2023

Belgium’s Deme with Greece’s Archirodon has been selected for the estimated $1bn contract to complete the next phase of the Duba port expansion at Oxagon industrial city.

The second phase follows the award of a contract to deliver the first phase of the port expansion. A team of Boskalis, Besix and the local Modern Building Leaders (MBL) was awarded that estimated SR3bn ($800m) contract in mid-January.

The scope of the Duba port expansion package includes excavation and dredging, revetments for channel widening, demolition, container terminal quay expansion and earthworks, in addition to the development of a flexible quay, a roll-on/roll-off (RoRo) berth and quay walls to a marine services berth and a coast guard facility.

The other bidders that competed for the contract included Van Oord of the Netherlands with South Korea’s Hyundai Engineering & Construction; a Belgian joint venture of Jan de Nul and Besix; Netherlands-based Boskalis with France’s Soletanche Bachy; South Korea’s Daewoo; and China Harbour Engineering Company.

Jacobs is the main design consultant, with Moffatt & Nichol, IGO and Trent as the main sub-consultants.

Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman launched Oxagon in late 2021. It will include onshore elements as well as floating structures offshore. Construction works on the 48 square-kilometre, eight-sided industrial city have already started.

An expanded Duba port is a critical component of Oxagon and the broader Neom development, as it will allow greater volumes of materials to be imported for the project. With an expected investment value of $500bn, Neom is the largest programme of construction work in the world.

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Colin Foreman

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