Kuwait’s Dar MEC Engineering offered a low bid of BD1.26m ($3.34m) for the pre- and post-contract engineering consultancy for the widening of Sheikh Isa bin Salman Highway and Jasrah Interchange upgrade (phase 2) in Bahrain.

The other consultancy firms that submitted an offer are:

• Pace / Pan Arab Engineering (Kuwait): $6.1m
• Dar SSH International (Lebanon): $6.2m
• Keo International (UAE): $8.9m

The same set of consultancy companies made an offer for a smaller pre-contract engineering consultancy package for the road widening of Budaiya and Janabiya Highway.

UAE’s KEO International Consultants offered a low bid of BD516,341 ($1.37m) for this package. The other offers were made by Dar SSH International ($1.6m), Pace / Pan Arab Consulting ($2.4m) and Dar MEC Engineering ($4.6m).

Both projects are part of the state’s access improvement programme. The client is the Bahrain Ministry of Works.

In early 2015, the Works MInistry cancelled a new 12-kilometre coastal highway connecting Bahrain’s Seef District and a town being built on reclaimed land off the coast of Duraz. The new road was to run parallel to the Budaiya Highway and the Al-Nakheel highway.

In early September, a Spanish consultancy firm – Idom Ingenieria y Consultoria – offered the lowest bid, priced at $2.43m, for the consultancy contract to update Bahrain’s urban transit network.

Bahrain has one of the most congested cities in the GCC despite having a population of just 1.3 million. It has about 500,000 registered cars, which has been growing at an average of 11 per cent annually.