Muscat to have bus network in 5 years.

It appears that we are about to see the start of a Muscat bus network comparable to that of Dubai. The Oman National Transport Company has been existence for quite some time, and I'm sure many of you have seen the somewhat pointless bus-stops that are dotted around Muscat - it appears that the buses may finally be coming!

ONTC have been given the mandate to get the bus network up and running within 5 years, so expect to see some development on these bus stops soon. ONTC currently operate long-haul routes, but no local bus service here in Muscat. Most of the infrastructure is already there - roads, bus stops (even though more are needed I'm sure). I guess most of the work is to actually establish the routes, train the drivers, price the tickets and purchase the buses. The maintenance facility is existing (to service the long distance coaches) but I suspect that will need upgrading as well.

Rather disturbingly, statistics show that only 15% of the population in Muscat actually own a vehicle. 15%. That is set to grow as the population boom matures and we find more and more drivers on the roads. So really it makes perfect sense to get a bus network in place, and those lovely bus stops can finally be used!

The only fall-out I can think of is that the taxi drivers are not going to be very pleased about this development. The rest of us should be pretty pleased about it - no more high-speed swerve & stop manoeuvres being carried out by taxi's on the highway.... I hope.

Local blogger Andy in Oman recently blogged about the ONTC and their existing timetable and fleet here, a quick but fact-filled read. I also ripped his photograph of the ONTC logo - hope you don't mind!

le fin.

Muscat International Airport MC3 awarded for RO 706 Million

Finally, after a Tender process of nearly 2 entire years, today the Tender board awarded the airport building contract (MC3) for RO 706 Million to the Contractor Bechtel. So here's a new logo to get used to seeing when driving past the airport:
What is strange about the award is that Bechtel were the most expensive of the three final Tenderers for the MC3 package, behind consortium's lead by CCC and J&P.

Now, I happen to currently be reading a book called "Confessions of an economic hitman" in which Bechtel are specifically being named as being a favoured Contractor with the US AID and similar aid organizations. Well worth a read if you have the time! Funnily enough, click here to see Bechtel's work in Iraq - the Client..... USAID!

Timing is a funny thing, sometimes. I wonder why Bechtel were awarded the job, when they were the highest of the three final tenderers? Technical expertise?

le fin.

Asian Beach Games....

Here we are, on the 10th of October, with 59 days to go until the launch of the Muscat Asian Beach Games.

The clock is ticking, and work is well under way at the venues, and I have faith that the facilities will be completed on time for the games - just in time.

But I have learned some rather disturbing pieces of information in recent weeks. There is no way for me to fully verify them and so I'm sure there will be additional pieces of information to this story that may make it more understandable... please do comment.

Have you tried to book a hotel in Muscat during the games? You may find it hard to do so as many hotels have had their rooms block-booked by the Ministry of Tourism. Why have they done this? They did this to accommodate the more than 1500 registered athletes from 45 countries who are due to compete in the games. The nice hotel and apartment building that has been built at the main facility is not going to accommodate any of the athletes - it's all being used by VIP's and sponsors - I guess that makes sense, because then you'd be into a favouritism argument if one team gets accommodation over another team, etc. etc.

In fact, of the 7 athlete accommodation buildings that were planned, only 1 has been built. Of a reported $100,000,000 budget assigned to the MABGOC (Muscat Asian Beach Games Organizing Committee), reportedly over 80% of it has been spent on the hotel and apartment complex that is really being handled by OMRAN (ok that does make some sense because MABGOC would have no experience in construction procurement).

It is certainly food for thought: Why Mussanah? Why re-invent the wheel and focus most efforts on building a hotel and apartment building in the middle of nowhere, when existing facilities within Muscat could have easily been adapted and expanded upon to meet the needs of the games. A hotel could have been built at Mussanah by OMRAN to a 4* standard for a lot less than $80 million.

On another point - have you actually visited the site of the Games? Imagine the traffic nightmare that is bound to happen when people try and attend.... to date I have not seen any modifications to the roads or signage, or the motorway access and egress (a simple round about). I hope the ROP will step in and control the traffic otherwise it'll be the pandemonium that we see in Ghala every day. Traffic issues will be compounded by the fact that the athletes will also have to drive in and out of the venue as well.

It is good that other parts of Oman are benefiting from the Games, but it is unfortunate that the facilities being constructed have left little choice for the athletes but to stay in hotel rooms, which the teams themselves are reportedly expected to pay for themselves (I understand that some rooms will be provided for free by the MABGOC, but not all).

One does have to ask the question: Why do countries bid for and compete to host major sporting events? The answer (among many answers) is to do with promoting tourism to that country, and in this case, getting Oman noticed on the world stage as a future host of other major international events. Oman is a truly unique treasure: It's got golden sandy beaches, mangroves, mountains and desert dunes all within 90 minutes of each other, and lets not even get started on the beautiful areas in the Dhofar region and the interior regions. And yet, many supporters hoping to travel with their countries teams will find it hard to secure a place to stay during the Games.

In general, it does look as if the athletes requirements have perhaps been balanced against getting the hotel and apartments finished at Mussanah. And as for the spectators, well the spectators information section on the official website informs us, "Spectator’s Services information will be made available in the months leading up to the Game" - well seeing that there is less than 2 months to go until the "Game" begins, this website is now out of date.

What do you think about the Asian Beach Games? Will you be attending? Do you think Oman will benefit from this event?

le fin.

Robberies in Azaiba, and Salam Yiti.

Yesterday the news finally broke officially that Omran will be taking on a larger role in the development of the stalled Salam Yiti project. This has been an inevitable development ever since Sama Dubai shelved the project two years ago. The original Contractor on the project, Douglas OHI, will presumably have to re-tender in a competitive bid process along with everyone else who chooses to tender on the project.

It'll be good to see the waste-land that Yiti currently is developed into something not so ugly - construction on site is tipped to start again in Q1 2011.

I've recently been informed that there are thieves operating in the Azaiba area (again). Car stereos, ipods, bags, anything in cars seems to be the target this time. Even the face plate off of a car stereo was taken in one case. Be sure to lock up, and hide anything of value from view.

More tomorrow.

le fin.

The Asian Beach Games - an update

For all those who happen to have been wondering about the Beach games project, here's a little update. The construction of the marina is complete (thanks to Carillon) and the structures are coming along (thanks to Larsen & Touboro) as well.




The big question is this: Will they be ready for the December 8th start date? I hazard a guess that it'll be all right on the night, but it's going to be a hairy ride getting there. Completion is slated for October 2010, and with the photo's above, it's a bit hard to tell. The two main accommodation blocks do not appear to have the exterior render works complete yet, and there's no way to tell how far the interiors are progressing. Time will tell, it's not good news that Ramadan is fast approaching, either (by that I mean, traditionally productivity falls dramatically during the Holy month).

I did read with some amusement on the official Muscat 2010 website that Al-Musannah Sports City (city?!) is expecting to cater to 50,000 spectators over the course of the event. I hope they get those kind of numbers, I really do. I've got some questions though:

2000 athletes are expected to be participating in the games - where will they be staying? The two major structures do not look like they could adequately house all of the athletes, and I have not heard any news on the development of the "Athletes village". Has it been scrapped in favour of a tent city? I'm told that all of the hotel rooms and apartments in the two buildings have already been booked out for various people (not athletes though) - so it is an interesting situation.

How is the venue going to be powered? By the national grid? It's possible I guess, the heat will not be bad in December, meaning lower A/C usage. I wonder if there will be a Generator farm?

How are the games to be attended? I understand that this will be a free event with no cost for tickets per-se, but when will we see the schedule? I imagine the women's beach volleyball games will be well attended :) It's one thing for us here in Muscat to decide to nip up the road on the weekend to go and laugh at watch teams play Kabaddi, it's entirely something different for supporters from other countries who are attempting to arrange trips to come and support their teams.

Do you intend to visit the Games in December?

le fin.

Yiti

As you may have read yesterday, I took Bertha out for a spin on the weekend and wondered down to Yiti. Many years ago, Omran got together with Sama Dubai to develop the area under a project entitled Salam Yiti.


Now this is a sorry tale. Local Contractors, Douglas OHI originally won the Contract with Sama Dubai to carry out the construction of the project. They built a large labour camp near to the site (and still use it today) as well as a large Concrete batching plant. They spent some significant capital to set up for the project. All of the dredging work was completed, and then Sama Dubai flaked on the project. It turned out that no, they did not have the $2 Billion required to fund the project after all.

Sama Dubai was one of the first victims in Dubai to succumb to the Credit Crunch. In fact their website has not even been updated since 2007, and their last press release was in fact promoting Salam Yiti. Yup, that's right - not even a press release to announce that they were shutting up shop. You've got to love the Corporate responsibility there.

Meanwhile, it looks like a bomb went off at Yiti, with massive dredging and levelling works more or less completed there. There are the usual industry rumours: HM is upset at Sama Dubai, well, their owners, Dubai Holding - ultimately we're talking about Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum. And so the rumour goes; HM is considering taking the land back, with Dubai forfeiting the land (and the money paid for it) for not completing the project. What is for sure, is that Omran currently don't appear to know what to do with it. Significant money was spent on the infrastructure, massively upgrading the access and power availability to the area at significant cost. Yiti, and Seifa are lovely places, but a road to the standard that has been built, just to visit those villages... not required. That road was built to transport tourists in large coaches. It's not a total loss, there are other projects popping up in the area, but nothing even close to the magnitude of what was envisaged for Salam Yiti. Watch this space for more news on it when/if it comes though.

Gratefully though, the beach has survived so far.



And I have to say it was a nice day out. A short drive there (thanks to the new road - although I do recommend the old road from Hamriyah for a nice drive). And there was hardly anyone there! The temperature was a lot cooler than it has been in recent weeks, and it was fantastic. A really nice day trip - I highly recommend it for a sneaky beach trip if you feel the need any time soon (ie before it's "developed").

However, driving through the village, it's obvious that the recent storm, Phet, dealt a pretty hard slap to the village. The road was practically gone, almost all of it was just a gravel track again. Many houses also got wiped out, see below:




I hope those that lost their houses are going to be OK. I've not seen anything in the press about Yiti in so long, I wonder if there are any plans in place to replace these houses? Re-new the road running through the village? Upgrade the facilities and infrastructure in the village?

le fin.

On the rails - Oman gets rolling

Today, the Tender Board finally announced that it was tendering for Project Management consultancy services (121/2010) and Design & Supervision consultancy services (120/2010) for National Railway projects here in Oman. The owning organisation is the Supreme Committee for Town Planning. Interesting!

The floats were picked up by Arabian Business here.


The ambitious plan is to 3 launch Construction tenders in 2012 and to complete all three legs of the work concurrently by 2017. I say ambitious because there's an awful lot of pre-contract work that's going to need to take place in order to get this monster done.

An excellent move, and part of a GCC wide initiative for a regional railway network.

The railway will certainly do a lot for building the economy of Oman away from Muscat. I don't know the route yet (but if you do, please do email me!), but I should imagine that I'd be buying up as much real estate as I could around the planned station towns :)

le fin.

Just a few thoughts

Not a lot to talk about today, so a few thoughts to share:

1. Oman Air

So when do these new planes actually arrive? Currently the "new" planes being operated to Heathrow and back are on wet lease from Jet Airways (for reportedly about $2 million per plane per month). Apparently Jet Airways are in talks with Oman Air to make these "dry" lease deals, which should drop the monthly cost to about $1 million, but then Oman Air have to provide more stuff, like staff. Presumably.

There's been discussion of new destinations, and I believe that Oman Air will be flying to: Paris, Franfurt, Colombo and The Maldives. Nice, flying to Paris will mean it'll be much easier to get to the villa in the South for France.

2. The Wave

As no doubt other bloggers will discuss in the coming days, apparently there are some whole-sale changes underway at the management of The Wave. Officially, Nick Smith (former CEO) has "retired".

3. H1N1

So it seems more and more people are getting this. Nadia @ Dhofari Gucci has blogged that there have been some deaths down in Salalah, and many more in intensive care. Scary business. Make sure you keep washing your hands through out your day! I do have to wonder about the seriousness of the situation in Saudi this year with people on Hajj.


Busy day again today... be sure to add any information via a comment to my Cost of Living post!

le fin

Blue City update, Social events for the week

The big news on Blue City is that there is no news. The deadline for the bid has been extended by another two weeks. Apparently negotiations are on-going between Essdar and the Bond holders but there are obviously some differences as indicated by no agreement being made (indicated by no press release from Essdar Capital).

On the social scene this week:

JUST BEAT IT! A night of the best Michael Jackson songs at the Grand Hyatt's Copacabana.

Rock With You, Billie Jean, Thriller … this is just a small selection of the songs by the King of Pop that will be played at Copacabana on Monday August 10. The doors of Copacabana open at 10:00pm for a night filled with the best of Michael Jackson tunes. Put on your dancing shoes and dance the night away. There will be fantastic prizes for the best Moonwalk and the best Michael Outfit. Admission is free. Nightclub policies apply; minimum age is 21.

10pm on a school night.... ;)

And, on Wednesday is the Muscat Rugby Club's The Three Amigo's night, with Hi-FM's Andy Pyzer filling in as DJ in between the sets. It starts at 8pm at the Rugby Club. There are 200 tickets available, and they are RO 8.000 if you are not a member. It promises to be a great night and there will be special discounts on drinks in the club.


If you are interested in supporting the rugby club, then please contact one of the people marked on the flyer above to reserve tickets at the door to avoid disappointment.

le fin

Just a quickie: 18th November St - NOW FINISHED

Driving to work this morning, I thought to myself that the final traffic light installation was practically done. It looked like this this morning:


And then this afternoon about 2pm, I drove through the area again, and lo and behold:


So hopefully the morning commute will not be so bad along 18th November Street now.

le fin

The Asian Beach Games - 2010

As I'm sure most of you know, Oman will be hosting the Asian Beach Games in Wudam Al Sahil near Mussanah (yet, rather strangely, the games are being advertised as Muscat 2010). The site is about an hour and a half drive away from Qurum, so it really is a bit of a stretch to say the games are being held in Muscat. However, after seeing the progress at the construction site, one has the question: Will this even be ready by June next year? I say June, because the official website from the Ministry of Tourism states that the athletes village will be completed by June 2010. Well, judging from the picture below, I'd say that the incumbent Contractor (L&T) had better accelerate it's work, or there very well maybe egg on some peoples faces.


From the picture, you can see that the breakwater has been completed (Carillion Alawi are to thank for that). The rather alarming lack of Command Centre (the Press area), Marina Hotel and Marina Residences building, coupled with the fact that it is August 2009, does suggest that the intended completion date of June 2010 might be hard to achieve. But not impossible. Maybe.


This other smaller picture is an elevation of what the site is intended to look like. I think either the Marina Hotel or Marina Residences building has commenced, because in the first picture you can see a little suggestion of work in the bottom left hand corner.

Well let's hope that L&T wake up and get their finger out and start to actually get this project built. I remain positive that something will be ready, just perhaps not what was originally envisaged.

The other point of note is that the games are scheduled to be held in December 2010 (source) and I'm sure that with those extra months, a lot of finishing touches will be completed.

Speaking of sporting events, has everyone got their F1 tickets for the Abu Dhabu grand prix on November 1st?

Blue City

There's not much to say about this so I'll just re-print the press release that came out a week ago.

22 July 2009
Essdar Investments Limited ("Essdar") has today announced a public tender offer (the "Offer") to purchase the outstanding Class A Floating Rate Senior Secured Unrestricted Notes (the "Notes") issued by Blue City Investments 1 Limited ("Blue City") with outstanding principal amount of US$ 661.5 million.

The Notes are part of the securitisation in November 2006 of a USD925m financing for Blue City Company 1 S.A.O.C. (BCC1) for the development of an upmarket residential, hotel and leisure resort on the coast of the Indian Ocean at Al Sawadi under the Project Al Madina A Zarqa, located 90km to the west of Muscat, the capital of the Sultanate of Oman.

The Offer may increase Essdar's aggregate Note holding to more than 75%. Essdar sought and obtained the consent of Blue City for a notice of the Offer to be made available to Note holders through the Euroclear and Clearstream clearing systems.

Essdar Capital Limited, regulated by the Dubai Financial Services Authority, is the financial adviser.

Interesting. A quick look over the Essdar Capital website here results in finding a more in-depth news release on the above mentioned buy-out. The deadline appears to be Next Wednesday (August 5th) at 17:00 GMT - so 8pm here in Muscat then. The next day is the published date for announcing whether the proposal was successful.

Bearing in mind that Fitch Ratings downgraded Blue City's bonds to CCC on the 15th of July, the current bond holders may very well be interested in getting out now and potentially cutting their losses. Considering that the Tender Agent for this deal is Citibank, and that these deals cost a lot of money to organise (I'd imagine the fees for this will be measured in the millions) - one might consider that this may be a formality to buy the bonds.

I don't know, and I guess none of us will know, until next Thursday the 6th of August when the announcement will be made by Essdar Capital as to whether their bid has been successful or not.

le fin.

Naseem A'Sabaa - New Development Announced

A new Integrated Tourism Complex (ITC) has been announced today. It's to be situated next to The Wave project on the coast. The official blurb in the Oman Observer can be found here but I'm sure in a few days that link wont work, so below is the pasted release from the Zawya website.

29 July 2009
Naseem A'Sabaa to generate $ 2.5bn income

MUSCAT -- A Malaysian real estate developer and an Omani landowner have signed a joint venture to build an integrated Tourism Complex (ITC) called Naseem A'Sabaa. Officials of the two companies, namely Bandar Raya Developments Berhad (BRDB), Malaysia, and Amouage Hotels and Resorts LLC, said the Naseem A'Sabaa would be built on a 400,000 square metre area in Al Athaiba. This is way above the smallest size (200,000 square metres) allowed for an ITC project in Oman.

Muhammad al Khaldi, Chairman, Amouage Hotels and Resorts, said the project is expected to generate sales worth $2.5 billion and will be up and running in the next five years. The joint venture has been concluded following almost two years of negotiations. Naseem A'Sabaa is a beachfront ITC project hardly 10 minutes from the airport neighbouring The Wave project. It will have residential villas, condominiums, two five-star hotels, a marina, marina apartments and commercial blocks.

The Naseem A'Sabaa project will be designed to target Omanis, Gulf nationals and a select group of Europeans, Dato Jagan Sabapathy, Chief Executive Officer, BRDB, told the Observer in response to a question. Sabapathy said the project is of great economic significance to Oman as it will a go a long way in creating new economic opportunities. Preliminary planning for the project has just begun.

Dato Muhammad Zamri, Ambassador of Malaysia, underlined the project's importance, saying it is set to be a unique one and quite different from the existing ITC projects in the Sultanate. Radiance International LLC, an investment procurement and real estate projects company, played a key role in bringing the Omani and Malaysian sides on a common platform for concluding the joint venture.

Sayyid Khalfan bin Taimur al Said, Chairman, Radiance, said: "BRDB is one of the leading top five developers from Malaysia and Amouage Hotels and Resorts is the first private Omani company to go in for an ITC project, where non-Omanis are allowed to own land and property." Amouage's vision is to develop a unique complex, which blends the architecture of Oman and Asia and is an asset for Oman.

Interesting stuff. It looks like there will finally be another metro-area marina for all those people with boats at the over-crowded Al Bandar Marina. OK, so Shangri-La are also building a Marina (and Marina Apartments) project as well, and that should be ready by 2011 - it's currently out to tender. So the Marina scene here in Muscat is hotting up!

Interestingly, the Malaysian partner company, BRDB also bought a 30% stake in Amouage Hotels and Resorts LLC - but that was not reported in any Gulf news sources. But I've found the story here if anyone's interested. The only real juicy bit is that BRDB are buying a 30% stake of Amouage Hotels and Resorts LLC from Mamas Loizou Ioanou Christodoulides and Mohammed Saleh Bin Eid Al Khaldi, for RM423,000 cash (thats about RO 46,000). That's not a bad little incentive is it! Strange that Amouage Hotels and Resorts LLC, by extension, is only worth RO 153,333. I would have thought it was worth more than that.

However, excellent news in what has been recently a more subdued market in the region. I look forward to seeing it develop.

Also noted in the Oman Observer article, "Radiance International LLC, an investment procurement and real estate projects company, played a key role in bringing the Omani and Malaysian sides on a common platform for concluding the joint venture. Sayyid Khalfan bin Taimur al Said, Chairman, Radiance". Now, I did a bit of research on Radiance and found this website. I should imagine that Sayyid Khalfan bin Taimur al Said has impeccable business and Government contacts in the Sultanate of Oman. What a great example of how the Government (& possibly Royal Family?) are working to stimulate growth in the country. Top marks.

The Sheraton

A constant main-stay that I find in bar-room conversation is the ever-popular question: "When is the Sheraton ever going to open again?".

And the answer is, November 18th. Albeit a partial opening, but I have confirmed reports that short of a total disaster, the hotel will have a partial opening. The reasons for the delays in the hotel renovation are enough to write a few text books on how not to carry-out a renovation project. The original project was supposed to be just a fresh coat of paint and some new furniture. The final project will entail:

• Newly refurbished suites (they've fixed that smell problem!). A nice extra is each suite will have a flat panel TV (par for the course these days) and a PS3 to play with.
• A new ballroom (to seat a few hundred people)
• New Business Centre
  
• New restaurants and bars (the night club is no more)
• A new Spa and Gym (which has replaced the night club)
• New external swimming pool, and a new pool bar
• New tennis courts

There is a rumour I've heard a few times about the Chinese takeaway, I mean, night club that used to be in the basement of the Sheraton. When it was indicated that there was to be no more nightclub at the hotel, the "pimp" for all these hard working Chinese horizontal refreshment providers was, shall we say, put out? His primary place of business was being closed. So the rumour goes, this unhappy turn of events so irked said "pimp" that his considerable Wasta muscles were flexed and the owners of The Sheraton building here in Oman were required to open a new bar (place of business) for the ladies of the night somewhere in Muscat.

Is it true? Probably not. But I wouldn't be surprised if there were elements of truth to it....

Anyway, The Sheraton will be opening in November, for HM's birthday. Even if the hotel isnt fully finshed.