The four-lane Al-Mat bridge was hit by coalition aircraft during the war, leaving just one lane in place to cater for the 3,000 trucks that travel daily to Baghdad from Jordan. Once the by-pass has been completed by the end of June, the Al-Mat bridge will be reconstructed, a process that Bechtel says will take three-six months.

Repairing bridges is a priority for Bechtel. At its recent contractor conferences, held in the second half of May in Washington, London and Kuwait City, Bechtel officials said that about six bridges had been identified for emergency repairs.

Bechtel has used the by-pass award to demonstrate its commitment to using Iraqi companies and manpower on the US Agency for International Development (USAID) programme, which is worth up to $680 million. 'The first subcontract should send out a strong signal to Iraqi builders that there is much work out there and we need help to get it done,' said Cliff Mumm, programme director for Bechtel's project team. 'We hope word of this signing will spread quickly. But to accelerate our introduction to Iraqi builders, we are planning to hold our next contractors' conference very soon in Baghdad.'

The Al-Bunnia award and the Baghdad conference should go some way to addressing complaints by Iraqi contractors of the difficulty in registering with Bechtel for subcontract work (MEED 31:5:03).

The four other recent subcontract awards have gone to:

the US' Lockheed Martinfor the provision of avionics consultancy services

Virginia-based MPRI for security and unexploded ordnance training

Kuwait's Al-Mullah Brothersto act as master mechanic for Umm Qasr

AmorGroup Services (Jersey)for general security services

This is the second Bechtel subcontract for ArmorGrpoup, having been awarded in late April a contract to provide temporary services for unexploded ordnance.