The local Al-Jaber has submitted a low bid of SR1.8bn ($480m) for the contract to build a new terminal building at Abha airport in Saudi Arabia.

Al-Jaber’s price is about five per cent lower than the second lowest price of SR1.9bn submitted by the local Al-Mabani General Contractors. The third lowest bidder is Kuwait’s Kuwait First Group with a price of SR2bn.

The other bidders are Turkey’s Mapa Insaat, the local Al-Muhaidib, Saudi Binladin Group, a joint venture of the local El-Seif Engineering Contracting and India’s Larsen & Toubro, Turkey’s Calyon Limak, the local Seder, the local Shibh al-Jazeera, a joint venture of Turkey’s TAV and the local Al-Arrab Contracting Company, and a joint venture of the local Mubty and Beijing based China Communications Construction Company.

The new terminal will cover a total area of 80,000 square metres and will contain 21 passenger gates. In addition to the terminal building, the contract will involve building other airport infrastructure, including a control tower, car parks and facilities such as mosques.

Abha airport is one of several regional airports being developed by Saudi Arabia’s General Authority for Civil Aviation (Gaca), including airports in Jizan, Al-Baha, Qassim, Tabuk and Al-Jouf.

In June 2013, Gaca received bids from 17 groups for the contract to build the new King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz airport in Jizan. The scheme will involve building a three-storey passenger terminal, a control tower, air cargo zones and other facilities. The terminal will have 10 gates and a VIP lounge.

A consortium of Saudi Lebanese Modern Construction Company, Safari and Safari & Salmoc and Al-Subaie (all local) submitted the low bid of SR2.57bn ($685m). This was 7 per cent less than the SR2.76bn price submitted by the second-lowest bidder, the local Saudi Pan Kingdom Company (Sapac).

Bids are also being assessed for the contract to build Tabuk airport. The other projects will be tendered later.

A much larger project is King Khalid International airport. In 2013, Gaca invited nine contracting groups to bid for the contract to expand the existing terminals 3 and 4 at Riyadh’s King Khalid International airport. The tender closing date is 27 February.

The prequalifiers include:

• Sapac (local)/ Samsung C&T (South Korea)
• Al-Arrab Contracting (local)/TAV (Turkey)
• Saudi Binladin (local)
• Al-Mabani General Contractors (local)/ Consolidated Contractors Company (CCC) (Athens-based)
• El-Seif Engineering Contracting Company/ Larsen &Toubro (India)/ Besix (Belgium)
• Al-Yamama (local)/Habtoor Leighton Group(UAE/Australia)
• Al-Bawani (local)/J&P (Joannou & Paraskevaides) (Cyprus)
• Hochtief (Germany)/Shapoorji Pallonji (India)
• FCC Construcciones (Spain)/Drake & Scull (UAE)

The design and build contract will involve the expansion of Terminal 3 and the unused Terminal 4, as well as additional landside work and concourses. The work will also involve the construction of aircraft aprons and stands, airport systems installations, and new utilities and services.

In February 2013, the local arm of US-based Aecom, Aecom Arabia, was appointed to project manage the expansion scheme. The work aims to increase the airport’s annual capacity to 24 million passengers from the today’s 14 million.

In May 2013, Gaca awarded the joint venture of Turkey’s TAV and the local Al-Arrab Contracting Company the estimated SR1.5bn ($400m) contract to build the new Terminal 5 building at King Khalid International.