A joint venture of China’s Avic International Holding Corporation and local Al-Dar (HOT) Engineering & Construction has offered a low bid of KD 149.8m ($497.2m) for the package three of the expansion of Kuwait International Airport.

The scope of the project includes the construction of a new code 4F west runway, the extension of the existing east runway, a new air traffic control tower, parallel taxiways, access roads and other related facilities.

Only four of the 11 prequalified contractors are understood to have submitted an offer.

The other three bidders are:

• Kuwait Systems General Trading & Contracting (local) / Cengiz Insaat Sanayi Ve Ticaret (Turkey): $513.8m
• Combined Group Contracting (local) / Sacyr Construction (Spain) / Grupo Isolux Corsan (Spain): $526.7m
•  Al-Ghanim International General Trading (local) / Larsen & Toubro (India): $679.4m

The project was first tendered in 2012, and was awarded to a joint venture of First Kuwaiti General Contracting and Saudi Arabia’s Almabani General Contractors. The scheme was retendered in 2014, following Almabani’s move to pull out from the project.

The project is expected to be completed in 2020, the same target completion date for Terminal 2.

The $4.3bn contract for Terminal 2 of the KIA was awarded to a team of Turkey’s Limak Holding and the local Kharafi National on 30 May.

Terminal 2 is a key component of Kuwait’s masterplan to bring its airport capacity to 50 million passengers by 2048. The KIA has been operating beyond its capacity. It processed more than 10.2 million passengers in 2015, which is more than twice its design capacity.

Total investment required in the first phase of developing KIA is expected to reach $6bn. Apart from Terminal 2, a contract for a temporary passenger support terminal, with a capacity of 4.5 million passengers, is awaiting formal award although a joint venture of Turkey’s Cengiz Insaat Sanayi Ve Ticareta and the local First Kuwaiti General Trading & Contracting (FKTC) has been confirmed to have won the contract.