Qatar-Bahrain Causeway plans to be unveiled

Date: 20/11/2009

Plans for the world’s longest marine causeway are scheduled to be showcased this Sunday at the Bridges Middle East Conference in Abu Dhabi.

The Qatar-Bahrain Causeway is designed to connect the countries with a 40 km two-lane dual carriageway, while also supporting infrastructure for freight and high-speed rail passenger trains.

Plans will include 17 km of embankments and 23 km of viaducts and bridges connected to two bow-string arch bridges that tower 40 m above the shipping channels below.

US engineering and construction firm KBR announced it will provide design, project and construction management for the client, the Qatar-Bahrain Causeway Foundation, in partnership with the Qatar-Bahrain Causeway Consortium, which will oversee contracting and building.

Bahrain is already connected to neighbouring Saudi Arabia by a causeway built in the 1980s, which is used by more than five million Saudi Arabians each year, according to figures in the Financial Times (FT).

The FT report suggests the new causeway will turn Bahrain into a corridor that will connect Saudi Arabia and Qatar when it is completed.