Abu Dhabi Ports Company (ADPC) has awarded a joint venture of Germany’s Ed Zueblin and the local Al-Jaber Group an estimated AED1bn infrastructure contract at Khalifa Port and Industrial Zone (KPIZ).

The contract involves civil and structural building works together with a road linking the offshore port to the mainland and other service roads. The buildings include a terminal operations centre.

ADPC expects the work to be completed in August 2012.

Contractors have also been invited to bid for the offshore terminal area of the port (MEED 21:5:10).

That contract involves finishing the earthworks for the terminal area, setting up mooring systems, installing utilities such as electricity supply cables, substations, and water pipes, laying crane rails, paving the container yard, the construction of roads, and building a fuel depot.

The successful bidder will also build a gatehouse, warehouses, a canteen building and other office buildings.

ADPC expects a contractor to start work on site in November with completion planned for June 2012 when the first phase of the new port is scheduled to open. The project was originally expected to be largely completed by late 2010.

A consortium of Geneva-registered Archirodon Construction, Boskalis Westminster Middle East of the Netherlands and South Korea’s Hyundai Engineering & Construction was awarded the AED5.5bn contract for the port’s marine works in 2007.

US-based Bechtel was appointed as the project’s programme manager in 2006.

The first phase of the port will have the capacity for 2 million 20-foot equivalent units (TEUs) and 6 million tonnes of general cargo. Four subsequent phases will result in capacity rising to 22 million TEUs and 35 million tonnes of cargo by 2028.