Kuwait’s Public Works Ministry has invited contractors to submit renewed bids by 2 June for the construction of the new passenger building at Kuwait airport.

The firms that have been invited to bid are:

• Arabtec (UAE)
• China State Construction Engineering Corporation (China)
• Limak / Kharafi National (Turkey / local)
• IC Ictas Insaat Sanayi Ve Ticaret (Turkey)
• Astaldi (Italy)

The ministry has decided to retender the work following dissatisfaction with the previous tender, which saw the lowest bid exceed the estimate cost of the project by 39 per cent as well as not meeting technical requirements, according to Abdulaziz al-Ibrahim, Kuwait’s Minister for Electricity, Water and Public Works, who said on 8 February that a technical committee in the ministry called for the bids to be rejected.

In November 2014, a team of Kuwait’s Kharafi National and Turkish firm Limak Holding had submitted the lowest bids for the contract at $4.7bn.

The price was nearly $1bn lower than the second-lowest price of $5.6bn submitted by Beijing-based China State Construction Engineering Corporation (CSCEC).

The prices that contractors submitted in early November were above the budget that Kuwait had given the terminal building project. In December 2014 MEED reported that Kuwait asked the groups that bid for the contract to propose value engineering options that will reduce the cost of the project.

The total investment in developing Kuwait International airport is expected to reach $6bn. In addition to the new terminal, an estimated $3bn will be spent on widening runways, enhancing control tower facilities and building new cargo facilities.