Great Lakes Nass has been awarded the $105 million contract to complete the land reclamation of over 6 million square meters of reclaimed sea expected to be completed in a period of 26 months.

The contract was signed at Durrat Al Bahrain premises by Mr. Yousif Taqi, Chairman of Durrat Al Bahrain and Mr. Abdulla Nass, Chairman of The Nass Group.

Durrat Al Bahrain, which is equally owned by both the Kingdom of Bahrain's government and Kuwait Finance House (KFH), has marked another major milestone by appointing the largest dredging contractor in the U.S. and one of the largest in the world. Great Lakes Nass will commence the physical creation of the project's 6 million square meters in November 2004.

'Great Lakes Nass was appointed after undertaking an extensive short listing and tender process involving some of the world's leading dredging and reclamation construction companies. With the local and international knowledge they have demonstrated, we firmly believe that they will successfully complete the project within the agreed timeframe,' said Jassim Al Jowder, Deputy General Manager at Durrat Al Bahrain.

In the company's 110 years of business, Great Lakes has never failed to complete a contracted project. The company has current projects underway throughout the U.S. as well as Bahrain, Egypt, Ghana, India, Bangladesh, Uruguay, and Panama, and maintains a division office in some of the major capitals across the Middle East, including Manama.

Durrat Al Bahrain is the second project in Bahrain to be awarded to Great Lakes Nass after the success they have verified in reclaiming the Khalifa Bin Salman Port and Industrial Area in Hidd. The joint venture combines the dredging expertise of Great Lakes with the proven capability of the Nass Group in carrying out the rock protection works. The Nass group placed over 3.5 million tonnes of rock protection on the Hidd project.

'We are greatly looking forward to meeting, and further exceed the developers' expectations after starting the dredging in November 2004. We will employ state-of-the-art machinery including the Dredge Carolina, which will be transported from Hidd. The project is our fourth contract in Bahrain and we are delighted to work within a consortium of world class contractors and services providers,' said John O'Brien, Division Manager for the Middle East, Great Lakes Dredge & Dock.

Durrat Al Bahrain, a 20 km sq area of desert & sea, is one and half larger than down town Manama, Bahrain's capital. It is set to become the country's largest city resort.

The stunning design of the city resort has been provided by WS Atkins, the renowned engineering design and consultancy firm, and is the vision of Tom Wright, WS Atkins Director of Architecture, who is renowned for international projects.