Mitsubishi likely to win new Dubai Metro work

26 August 2014

Dubai Road & Transport Authority prepares to tender $1.8bn in construction deals and signals Mitsubishi-led consortium as frontrunner

Dubai’s Road & Transport Authority (RTA) has signalled that the consortium of companies led by Japan’s Mitsubishi Corporation is likely to win more work as the authority prepares to tender $1.8bn in new rail construction contracts. The Mitsubishi-led team won the engineering procurement and construction (EPC) contract for the emirate’s first metro lines

“With the first metro project we were happy with the contractors we had,” says Abdul Redha Abu al-Hassan, director of rail planning and projects development for RTA.

“They have the biggest chance to win. They have the technology. They know all the information. They have the lessons learned. Now all they have to do is submit a competitive price.”

Ahead of the Expo 2020 event, which is due to be held in Dubai in six years, the RTA plans to extend both of Dubai’s two metro lines.

In a $1.3bn project, the Red Line is going to be extended by 3 kilometres from Rashidiya to Mirdiff, and by 15km from Jebel Ali to the Expo 2020 site. The extension will add 12 more stations to the line, bringing the total to 41.

The design for the Red Line extension is due to be completed by March 2015 and the EPC contract is expected to be awarded in November the same year.

In a $500m project, the city’s Green Line is due to be extended by 20.6km from Al-Jadaf to Academic City.

Both lines were originally constructed by a consortium led by Japan’s Mitsubishi Corporation, which also included Japanese companies Kajima Corporation and Obayashi Corporation, as well as the Turkey’s Yapi Merkezi.

“It’s not like building a normal building, where they would have a lot of competitors. It’s a very specific system,” says Al-Hassan.

“They should be the best one to submit a competitive price because they will be saving a lot in preparation work. They have all the data. There are thousands and thousands of drawings – and they have them. A new consultant would have to come in and go through all of these drawing just to understand the existing system to continue.”

A MEED Subscription...

Subscribe or upgrade your current MEED.com package to support your strategic planning with the MENA region’s best source of business information. Proceed to our online shop below to find out more about the features in each package.