The Transport & Communications Ministry has received bids from contractors for the contract to make the road running between Barka and Nakhal in the South Batinah Governorate in northern Oman a dual carriageway.

The low bidder is the local Al-Shanfri Trading Company with a price of RO59m ($153m), which is about 9 per cent lower than the price of RO65m submitted by the local Galfar Engineering & Contracting.

The other bidders are Athens-based Consolidated Contractors Company (CCC) at RO70m, the UAE’s Ghantoot Group at RO70m, and Turkey’s Ozkar Construction at RO74m.

In August, the ministry received bids for two major packages on the project to dualise the Adam to Thumrait road. For the first package, the ministry received 17 prices from nine contractors, with most of the bidders submitting two offers.

The UAE’s Ghantoot Transport & General Contracting (GTGC) submitted the two lowest bids.

The projects are part of the sultanate’s efforts to upgrade and expand its transport links. The ministry is also pushing ahead with plans to convert the Batinah Expressway from a dual carriageway into a six-lane highway, three lanes in each direction. It recently awarded India’s Nagarjuna Construction Company a RO143m contract to build the second package of the expressway and has tendered packages 7, 8, 9 and 10 for the ambitious road project.