Oman’s Port of Salalah authority will issue the tender documents for a $120m contract to expand the port’s general container terminal one month later than scheduled.

The port authority says it will issue the tender documents by the end of April rather than in March as originally planned.

Construction on the expansion scheme is scheduled to start in the fourth quarter of 2010 (MEED 28:2:10).

The expansion of the general container terminal involves building an additional 1,200 metres of multi-purpose berths, a new northern breakwater, facilities for dry-bulk commodities and a new liquids jetty. The expansion will increase capacity at the terminal to 40 million tonnes of dry-bulk commodities and five million tonnes of liquid products each year.

The contract is part of a larger $645m expansion planned by the Port of Salalah. The masterplan will be executed over 20 years.

Aside from the expansion of the general container terminal, other plans involve a $525m expansion of terminal two, which is a container terminal.

The design for terminal two is now complete and construction could start in 2011 depending on the recovery of the global economy.

Lebanon’s Khatib & Alami and Netherlands-based Royal Haskoning have prepared the designs for terminal two.