Dubai Municipality has received bids for the contract to build the pumping station for the planned Jebel Ali stormwater network project.

The lowest bidder is Greece’s Archirodon with a price of AED998m ($272m), which is about 12 per cent lower than the offer of AED1.136bn submitted by China’s Sinohydro.

The other two bidders were India’s Larsen & Toubro at AED1.153bn and Belgium’s Besix at AED1.2bn.

The contract involves the construction of a pumping station 55 metres below ground that can pump water at 30 cubic metres a-second as well as various support buildings.

The pumping station will be connected to a stormwater tunnel for which prices were opened in early July.

A consortium led by Austria’s Porr has submitted the lowest bid for the tunnelling package with a price of AED1.3bn. This was almost 13 per cent lower than the AED1.5bn proposal submitted by the second lowest bidder, Italy’s Salini Impregilo.

The stormwater tunnel network has been identified as a key project to prevent any future flooding of Al-Maktoum International airport and the surrounding area, which will include the Expo 2020 site.

The network is one of three major deep-tunnel projects Dubai Municipality is planning to undertake.

The project owner is preparing to develop two major deep-tunnel sewer networks in the Deira and Bur Dubai areas of the emirate, which will be similar to the strategic tunnel enhancement programme (STEP) project in neighbouring Abu Dhabi. MEED recently reported that the municipality had hired a consultant to prepare to press ahead with the project as a public-private partnership (PPP) scheme.