Etihad Rail has held meetings with six groups bidding for the civil engineering contract for the first phase of the $11bn federal railway project.

The six groups were invited to give presentations to Etihad Rail on the 17 and 18 July as part of their bid submissions.

The shortlisted groups include:

• Al-Habtoor Leighton (local/Australia)/John Holland (Australia
• Samsung C&T (South Korea)/Impregilo (Italy)/Tristar (local)
• Al-Jaber Group (local)/China Railway Construction Company (China)

Etihad Rail says that the meetings do no mean that these companies have been shortlisted for the contract. “Etihad Rail can confirm that, at the present time, no shortlist for the civil engineering tender has been agreed upon,” says Etihad Rail in a statement. “Evaluation is still underway and the outcome of this, and any recommendations, will be presented to the board of Etihad Rail at the appropriate time.”

Etihad Rail received 12 bids on 1 June for the civil engineering package, which is the first construction package to be tendered for the UAE’s rail project (MEED 2:6:11).

The estimated AED2bn ($544m) civil engineering contract includes civil structures, systems, facilities and track work.

The 12 bidders include: 

• Al-Habtoor Leighton (local/Australia)/John Holland (Australia)
• Nurol (local/Turkey) / Astaldi (Italy)/Al-Meraikhi Industrial Complex (local).
• Consolidated Contractors Company (CCC) (Athens-based)/OHL (Spain)
• Ircon International (India)/Railtrack India
• Samsung C&T (South Korea)/Impregilo (Italy)/Tristar (local)
• Al-Jaber Group (local)/China Railway Construction Company (China)
• Saipem (Italy)/Tecnimont (Italy)
• Saif bin Darwish (local)/Al-Futtaim Carillion (local/UK)
• Fujita Corporation (Japan)/Sagar Infra Rail International (Siril) (India)
• GS Engineering & Construction (South Korea)/Al-Naboodah Contracting (local)

In April, a US group of Aecom and Parsons won the project management consultancy (PMC) contract for the first phase of the project after Etihad Rail cancelled the initial PMC contract in January.

The UK’s Atkins will carry out preliminary engineering work for the entire UAE railway after the contract awarded to Parsons Brinckerhoff for stages one and two was cancelled in January.

The start of construction has now been pushed back to the fourth quarter of 2011, rather than the summer as initially planned.

The first phase of the railway runs from the port of Ruwais to the gas fields in Habshan and Shah in Abu Dhabi’s Western Region. This is known as stage zero. Aecom-Parsons will also be project manager for the next stages of development, which are stage one, the rail network in Abu Dhabi and Dubai, and stage two, which will see the rail network extend to the Northern Emirates.