The joint venture of Turkey’s TAV and the local Al-Arrab Contracting Company has submitted a low bid of SR1.099bn ($293m) for the contract to build the new terminal 5 building at King Khalid International airport in Riyadh.

The joint venture’s bid is about 27 per cent lower than the price of SR1.5bn submitted by the joint venture of Athens-based Consolidated Contractors Company (CCC), the local Al-Mabani General Contractors, and UAE-based Drake & Scull International.

The other bidders are UAE-based Arabtec Construction at SR1.59bn, Cyprus-based Joannou & Paraskevaides (Overseas) at SR1.86bn, a joint venture of France’s Vinci Construction and the local Al-Bawani at SR1.89bn, the UAE/Australian Habtoor Leighton and the local Al-Latifia Trading & Contracting at SR2.095bn and the joint venture of Turkey’s Yuksel, Turkey’s YDA and the local Saudi Constructioneers at SR2.11bn.

Saudi Arabia’s General Authority for Civil Aviation (Gaca) invited firms to submit bids for the contract in September.

The new terminal 5 is part of Gaca’s significant expansion programme for King Khalid International, which will increase the airport’s annual capacity to about 24 million passengers from the current 14 million.

In July, the local Al-Mabani General Contractors was awarded an estimated SR219.5m ($58.5m) contract to build a new apron at the Riyadh airport. The work will involve the construction of an apron at terminal 3 and the currently unused terminal 4.

King Khalid International airport is located about 35 kilometres north of the capital.

In 2011 a consortium led by TAV won the contract for the $1.5bn expansion of Medina International airport on a public-private partnership (PPP) basis.

TAV, and its other consortium members, Saudi Oger and Al-Rajhi will design, finance, build and operate Medina airport for a concession period of 25 years.