Bahrain-Qatar Causeway will cut travel time from five hours to 30 minutes

Leaders of Bahrain and Qatar have agreed to resume the Bahrain-Qatar Causeway Project and directed the concerned authorities to complete the necessary plans to initiate its implementation.

In a bilateral meeting held in Manama, HRH Prince Salman bin Hamad Al Khalifa, crown prince and prime minister of Bahrain and the prime minister and minister of foreign affairs of Qatar, Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al-Thani, also reviewed the wider Bahrain-Qatar partnership and ways to further bolster cooperation.

According to the Bahrain News Agency (BNA), Crown Prince Salman and Sheikh Mohammed “discussed the project and directed the relevant authorities of both countries to finalise plans and commence project implementation.”

Bahrain-Qatar-Causeway

Also known as the Qatar Bahrain Friendship Bridge, the causeway will link the northern region of Qatar to Bahrain’s eastern coast at Askar village. Once completed, the approximately 40km Bahrain-Qatar Causeway will reduce the travel time between Bahrain and Qatar from five hours to 30 minutes.

It will have a dual, two-lane highway, as well as two rail tracks, and is expected to be an extension of the King Fahd Causeway that connects Bahrain and Saudi Arabia.

About half of the causeway will consist of bridges and the rest of a highway built on reclaimed land. Flyovers will be as high as 40m above sea level to allow ship crossings.

Upon completion, the causeway will be the longest permanent bridge in the world.

Delays
The project is resumed after its suspension following strained diplomatic ties with Qatar. The two countries decided to resume diplomatic relations on 13 March this year after a two-year reconciliation period in the Gulf.

Under a Memorandum of Understanding signed in 2005 to launch the project, a joint institution was formed which was entrusted with managing, maintaining, and operating the causeway and investing in its facilities.

According to reports, Danish engineering consultancy group COWI International had provided a preliminary design for the causeway in 2004, and had signed an approximately $9 million contract in 2001 for the pre-study and initial phase of construction with the Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Agriculture in Qatar.

In 2008, the Qatar Building Company awarded a contract to KBR, an international US-based engineering company, to provide design management, project management and construction management services for the project.

The first two phases of work on the bridge project — including management planning and design oversight — were initiated with primary subcontractor Halcrow, a UK-based international engineering company.

In 2011, the project was expected to take four years to build, set to be completed in 2015 at a cost of $5.5 billion funded mainly by Qatar. This was an escalation from an earlier estimate of $4bn due to multiple rounds of redesign and amendments.

The consortium overseeing the construction at the time comprised Al Diyar Real Estate Company, Vinci Grand Projects, French Contracting Company, German Hochtief Company, Consolidated Contractors International Company in Greece and Middle East Dredging Company.

Source: Construction Week Middle East