Award of Arabian Canal excavation deal this year

Dubai: Dubai World's real restate firm Limitless will award its first major excavation contract for the ambitious Dh40 billion Arabian Canal project by the middle of this year, a senior official said.

Some 30 international and Gulf-based companies have contacted Limitless to do excavation work for the 75-kilometre waterway, the water depth of which will be six metres, the company's development manager Ian Raine told Gulf News.

"We are expecting to award the first contact by the middle of this year. Several companies have approached us and we are going through the selection process," he said.

There will be six to seven major packages for the excavation work. The total depth of excavation is 70 metres from the ground to sea level.

Completion target

The company, which calls the canal "the largest and most complex civil engineering project ever undertaken in the Middle East," is aiming to complete major civil works in three to five years.

"There will be obviously [real estate] developments going beyond that," he said.

An estimated one billion cubic metres of earth will be dug up for the canal.

"The intention is to use this material in creating topography around this development as much as possible," Raine said.

It could also be used in land reclamation work being done for offshore projects such as the Palm Islands, Dubai Waterfront and The Universe.

Raine said mining technologies will be used in several places as the material being dug involves both sand and rocks. Excavation work has already begun on a trial basis.

Earlier, Raine told the MEED conference on mega projects that the company is looking for ways to avoid contamination of ground water with sea water.

Route

The canal will flow inland from Nakheel's Dubai Waterfront development in the Jebel Ali area to a point near the Palm Jumeirah man-made island.

It will be up to 150 metres wide and support billions of dollars of real estate and leisure projects on both sides of the water.

An area of 14,000 hectares will be developed for real estate, which will increase Dubai's population by 1.5 million.