A site visit will be held on 22 June for the contract, which is one of the first to be issued on the 570,000-tonne-a-year aluminium smelter project.

The prequalifiers for the site preparation contract include Geneva-registered Archirodon Construction (Overseas); South Korea's Hyundai Engineering & Construction Company; a Belgian consortium of Jan de Nul and Six Construct; a consortium of Qatar Dredging Company, India's Larsen & Toubro and South Africa's Murray & Roberts Contractors (Middle East); and Van Oord Gulf of the Netherlands.

The contract, due to be awarded in early November, will involve the dredging of about 7 million cubic metres of material to a depth of 13 metres, site-filling and levelling work, the construction of 500 metres of quay wall and associated works. The dredging and landfill work is due to be completed in the third quarter of 2007 and overall contract completion is set for mid-2008.

Tendering is already under way on another package covering the potroom building and associated infrastructure. In addition to the smelter, Qatalum is planning to build a 1,350-MW power plant.

Qatalum is a joint venture between Norway's Hydro and Qatar Petroleum (MEED 31:3:06).

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