Orascom's Contrack awarded Qatar contract

Egypt’s Orascom Construction Industries (OCI) said construction subsidiary Contrack International is in a joint venture with Qatari contractor Darwish for a US$355m contract to construct the Science and Technology Park in Doha. "We are pleased to receive our fifth consecutive contract in the Education City project in Qatar. The repeat business emphasizes our client’s confidence in our ability to deliver high quality work on a fast track basis," Nassef Sawiris, chief executive office of OCI, was quoted as saying in a press release.

The contract calls for Contrack to build five main structures in addition to landscape and infrastructure. The project is expected to be completed in 20 months, a press release issued by OCI stated.

The first contract was awarded to the company by Education City in April 2002. Since then, Contrack has been awarded two contracts with a combined value of $129 million for erection of all infrastructure works in the Education City alongside a residential compound. Contrack was also awarded a $13.3 million contract for the construction of Al Jazeera news network’s new building for its children’s television channel based in the project.

OCI is a cement producer and construction contractor active in emerging markets. It operates cement plants in Egypt and Algeria with an annual production capacity of 13.5Mt. It plans to increase production through its new investments in Pakistan, Northern Iraq, Nigeria, Algeria, the United Arab Emirates and most recently Spain to 28Mt by 2007.