Small port in Kuwait is among the country's planned marine projects. Related Links: Egypt's Orascom Looks To Expand Into Middle East Rail Megaproject: $11-Billion United Arab Emirates Network Port construction is booming in mideastern countries seeking to boost their economies and plan for more energy production or imports.Large jobs are under way or announced in Oman, Turkey, Morocco, Qatar, Kuwait and even Libya, where suspended work in Benghazi and Tripoli is being renegotiated and contracts are progressing, say officials and construction executives.Kuwait Oil Co. has tapped Istanbul-based contractor STFA to build a new $486-million port to handle up to 70

With its two airports nearing capacity, Istanbul is set to build a third. Turkey's transport minister, Binali Yildirim, recently announced that the airport project, estimated to cost $5.6 billion, will be tendered next month, with bids expected by December.

Image courtesy FXFOWLE Work will soon begin on the 606-foot-tall Renaissance Tower in Istanbul, Turkey. Image courtesy FXFOWLE Located on the Asian side of Istanbul, the 44-story tower will be a highly visible landmark in this city of roughly 12 million people. A 606-ft-high chiseled obelisk designed by FXFOWLE, New York City, will delineate the eastern entrance to Istanbul when construction finishes in July 2014. Renaissance Tower, as the office building will be known, is being developed by Ankara-based Renaissance Construction Co., which plans to lease most of the 914,900-sq-ft high-rise.Located on the Asian side of Istanbul, the 44-story tower

Dorsch Gruppe Medina terminal is set to be Saudi Arabia's first privatized airport project. KPF Six global teams are vying for the estimated $6.8-billion Midfield Airport Terminal project in Abu Dhabi. One of the Persian Gulf region's first public-private-partnership contracts—and the first for an airport in Saudi Arabia—has been awarded to a consortium led by Istanbul-based TAV Airports Holding AS and its local partners, Al Rajhi Holding Group and Saudi Oger Ltd.The consortium’s estimated $1-billion to $1.5-billion investment to expand the 30-year-old Prince Mohammad Bin Abdulaziz International Airport in Medina will be recouped through a concession to operate the airport

N/A Work on $20-billion chemical complex addition at Saudi site will start in 2012. A Dow Chemical Co.-Saudi Aramco joint venture has already contracted out about half of the $20-billion capital investment for its world-scale petrochemical complex in Jubail, Saudi Arabia. It expects to award all engineering, procurement and construction contracts by mid-2012, a project executive said last month. Aramco Vice President Abdulaziz Al Judaimi added that construction would start in the third quarter.Jacobs Engineering Group on Nov. 8 won the EPC management contract to provide front-end engineering design, overall construction management and other services. The contract value was not

AP Global engineers and contractors are moving to restore ties in war-ravaged Libya, but work to restore buildings infrastructure damage, including here in Tripoli, remains a complicated process. As the business of rebuilding Libya gears up after its civil war, global firms are looking to resume work and pick up new projects.Repairing the damaged Tripoli International Airport runway appears to be a top priority. The Libyan National Transition Council and civil administration officials are discussing repairs with Istanbul-based TAV Construction, which has dispatched an expert runway team to the capitol to assess the situation. With the damaged runway, all current flights

Photo Courtesy of AP Wideworld The Chamber of Turkish Engineers and Architects says 40% of Turkeys housing needs to be reinforced or rebuilt to avert disaster in seismic events such as the one that struck the province of Van. Scenes of collapsed buildings and rescuers pulling survivors from rubble once again show the acute need for seismic retrofitting and better- quality construction in Turkey.A sense of déjà vu envelops Turkey at the start of November, with 601 dead, 4,151 injured and 3,713 buildings destroyed or uninhabitable as a result of a 7.2-magnitude quake that struck the eastern province of Van

AP/Wide World Ercis, a town of 75,000 near the Iranian border, was the hardest hit. Related Links: A History of Turkish Earthquakes Turkish government agencies say the damage is widespread and severe from the 7.2 earthquake that rocked eastern Turkey on October 23.The quake destroyed 2,262 buildings, killing 366 people and injuring 1,301, according to AFAD, Turkey’s Disaster and Emergency Management agency.Kockopru Dam, a 75-meter-high, clay core rock fill dam and hydro-electric powerplant on the Zilan River in the Lake Van Basin, withstood the earthquake with no damage. So did the other dams in the area, according to the State

Photo courtesy of Chattahbox News Blog Iraqi oil field near the Iranian border is not among fields foreign oil companies plan to further develop. Anglo-Dutch energy giant Royal Dutch Shell PLC and Mitsubishi Corp. of Japan last month moved closer to pushing a new round of oil and gas infrastructure building in Iraq after signing an initial energy development deal with the oil ministry to process more than 700 cu ft per day of gas now flared at three domestic oilfields.According to an Associated Press report, the 25-year deal could be worth at least $12 billion, but it still must

Oman and Egypt will spend $2.95 billion in the next few years to expand and rebuild major airports in a bid to boost tourism and cargo capacity. Dubai and Bahrain have also announced significant expansion plans for their airports in order to become global aviation hubs. Related Links: Chinese Suffer Major Setback in European Construction Market Norway Firm Clinches Tanzania Power Contract Hong Kong's Tuen Mun Sludge Incineration Plant Will Be One of World's Largest Kenya Delays $3B Railway Project for Nine Months Israel Embarks on Country's Largest Seismic Retrofit A consortium of San Francisco-based Bechtel, Turkey’s Enka Construction Co.