A joint venture of the local Midmac Contracting Company and Austria’s Porr has been awarded the contract to build Al-Wakrah stadium in Qatar.

The stadium will have the capacity to seat 45,000 people during football’s Fifa World Cup 2022.

In May 2014, Qatar’s Supreme Committee for Delivery and Legacy awarded local HBK Contracting Company the enabling works contract.

In May 2013, Aecom was appointed design consultant and the local office of Kuwait-based KEO Consultants as project manager for the Al-Wakrah stadium project.

The contract is the second stadium construction deal to be awarded in Qatar this year.

In July, a joint venture of Italy’s Salini Impregilo, the local Galfar Engineering and Italy’s Cimolai was awarded the €770m ($850m) contract by the local Aspire Zone to build the Al-Bayt stadium in Al-Khor.

Salini Impregilo says €716m of the contract value covers the construction of the stadium and €53m will go towards the operation and maintenance.

The construction, which is due to be completed in September 2018, involves building a stadium that can accommodate 70,000 spectators, with an area of 200,000 square metres, auxiliary buildings and a utilities centre.

In April 2014, Qatar awarded the first World Cup stadium construction contract to a joint venture of Belgium’s Six Construct and local Midmac. The estimated $300m contract involves upgrading the existing Khalifa Stadium and increasing the seating capacity of the stadium to 60,000, from the current 45,000.

The 24-month contract will also include the renovation of the museum at the surrounding Khalifa Sports City.

The largest new stadium will be the Lusail Stadium. The UK’s Foster+Partners was appointed to design the flagship facility in early March this year.

In early December, a statement from the Qatar 2022 Local Organising Committee (LOC) said it will confirm the final number of stadiums for the FIFA 2022 World Cup in January 2016,  .

The authorities were expected to announce the final number of stadiums by the end of December, in line with conditions imposed by FIFA.

Fifa regulations stipulate a host nation must deliver a minimum of eight and a maximum of 12 stadiums. The final decision is set to be approved by football’s governing body in January 2015.

“There was an agreement about deciding the number of stadiums for the World Cup by the end of this year but because of the importance of this matter, we decided to postpone the decision,” said Nasser al-Khater, the assistant general secretary of LOC.