Dubai’s Drake & Scull bags Dh343m Doha Metro contract

23/03/2016 11:56 AST

Dubai’s Drake & Scull has been awarded a 340 million Qatari riyal (Dh343m) contract on Qatar Rail’s Doha Metro project relating to its depots.

The contract was awarded by Japan’s Fujita Corporation, whose consortium landed a contract in February 2015 to provide all of the metro’s systems and rolling stock, including 75 sets of three-car trains.

Fujita’s consortium has appointed Drake & Scull to supply, install, test and commission all of the MEP building services required in the depot and stabling yards used for both the metro’s red and green lines. Work will be complete by 2019 - the year in which the first phase of Doha Metro is set to open.

Ahmad Al Naser, the managing director of Drake & Scull Engineering, said that the contract was Drake & Scull’s second major rail project in the GCC following its work on the Dh35m people mover system at Dubai Airport.

Drake & Scull had carried out a number of rail projects in the Far East in the 1970s and in the UK in the 1990s/2000s, but only established a rail presence in the GCC in 2012. Past work outside the region has included light rail and metro projects in Hong Kong, as well as work on the Jubilee Line extension on the London Underground.

Darko Macura, operations director of Drake & Scull Rail, said that it is “actively bidding and tendering for several high profile rail networks and urban transport projects in the UAE, KSA and Qatar markets".

“We are confident about securing more rail projects in the region," he added.

The National