Oman Rail recently met with contractors, several months after the first segment of its $15bn national railway was put on hold.

“There is a general indication they would be prioritising the rail that would link to the port in Duqm in the south-eastern part of the sultanate… but no definite timeline has been set [for the tender],” a source familiar with the project and who was at one of the meetings told MEED.

In September 2015, Oman Rail has prequalified engineering, procurement and contracting (EPC) contractors for several segments of the railway including the Gabah-Duqm line.

The prequalified EPC companies were:

• Corsan-Corviam Construccion (Spain) / Cooperativa Muratori & Cementisti (Italy) / Orascom Construction (Egypt) / Zubair Construction (local)
• Salini Impregilo (Italy)
• Acciona Infraestructuras (Spain) / STFA Insaat (Turkey) / Tecnimont Civil Construction (Italy)
• Eiffage Travaux Publics (France) / Yapi Merkezi Insaat ve Sanayi (Turkey) / GS Engineering & Construction Corporation (South Korea)
• China State Construction Engineering Corporation (CSCEC) (China) / Larsen & Toubro (India) / SK Engineering & Construction (SKEC)
• China Railway Construction Corporation (CRCC) (China) / Oman National Engineering & Investment Company (ONEIC) (local)
• Societa Italiana per Condotte d’Acqua (Italy) / Itinera (Italy) / SWS Engineering (Italy)
• Strabag (Germany) / Consolidated Contractors Company (Lebanon)
• Terna (Greece) / Synohydro Corporation (China) / Arabtec Construction (UAE)
• China Tiesiju Civil Engineering (China) / China Railway Eryuan Engineering Group (China)
• Saipem (Italy) / Rizzani de Eccher (Italy) / Dogus Insaat ve Ticaret (Turkey)
• Porr Bau (Austria) / Yuksel Insaat (Turkey) / Daewoo Engineering & Construction (South Korea) / Sarooj Construction Company (local)
• Ircon International Limited (India) / Hani Archirodon (Oman) / Tata Projects (India)
• Vinci Construction (France) / Aktor (Greece) / Vinci Construction Terrassement (France)
• China Railway Group Limited (China) / Mapa Insaat ve Ticaret (Turkey)
• Ferrovial Agroman (Spain) / Galfar Engineering & Contracting (local)
• Astaldi (Italy) / Samsung C & T (South Korea)

It is understood that Oman Rail will likely to modify or adjust the design of the various rail segments to optimise cost and reduce investment. “As of now it is not clear if they intend to commission a new engagement with the design and engineering consultancy or conduct another round of prequalification for interested bidders,” the source added.

The first segment of the railway, whose main contract was expected to be awarded earlier this year, was put on hold a few months after the UAE’s Etihad Rail announced cancelling the tender for the second phase of its railway.

The original scope of the second segment involves building rail lines in Abu Dhabi emirate between Ghuweifat and Ruwais, a line to Jebel Ali in Dubai and a link to Al-Ain, where it would link up with the Omani railway. Segment 1 of the Omani railway was to run 207km between Sohar Port and Buraimi on the sultanate’s border with the UAE,

Kuwait is also expected to make post-feasibility study announcements for the country’s national rail road possibly in the first half of 2017. “It would be too optimistic to expect that they will start procurement… but we would expect them to at least announce whether they have decided between using a public-private partnership (PPP) or an engineering, procurement and contracting (EPC) model,” another source told MEED this week.

 An estimated $64bn-worth of mainline rail and urban projects are underway in the Middle East and North Africa, excluding Iran, according to MEED Projects data.