Dubai’s Roads and Transport Authority (RTA) has awarded the Saudi Binladin Group a contract for rehabilitation works on the Jebel Ali-Lehbab road.

Saudi Binladin Group was the low bidder for the contract in December when it submitted a price of AED71.6m ($19.5m), which was about 17 per cent lower than the local Darwish Engineering’s bid of AED86.2m.

The other bidders are the National Contracting & Transport Company at AED88.4m, the local Arabtec Engineering Services at AED88.5m, Emirates Road Contracting at AED108.8m, Guris Dubai at AED109m, and China Harbour Engineering Company at AED141m.

The consultant for the contract is the US’ Aecom.

Two contracts upgrading the road totalling about $60m were completed in 2007 by the local Bin Hafeez General Contracting & Transport Establishment and Saif bin Darwish. The project included widening 34 kilometres of the highway and the construction of 5km of new roads.

Canada’s Cansult, which is now part of Aecom, was the consultant for the work.

The highway is an important part of Dubai’s road network as it takes traffic from Jebel Ali port and the surrounding industrial areas out of Dubai and onto roads connecting to other parts of Dubai and other emirates.