South African engineering and construction group Murray & Roberts announced on Monday that the Al Habtoor Murray & Roberts Takenaka Joint Venture has been awarded the contract for Concourse 3 at Dubai International Airport for the Department of Civil Aviation.

The project value is about AED5 billion, with Murray & Roberts as project leader and its 40% share valued at about R6 billion. The contract will commence immediately and is scheduled for completion within 29 months by end-April 2011.

The Joint Venture recently completed Concourse 2 and Terminal 3 which was successfully commissioned in October 2008 and previously constructed the Sheikh Rashid Terminal (Terminal 1) between 1998 and 2000.

Turning to other matters, the group said: "Shareholders will be aware that Eskom in South Africa recently announced that it will not proceed with its procurement of a second nuclear power station. However, the Group is confident that the South African Government will continue to pursue its low to zero emission power generation strategy outside of Eskom and will engage directly with the private sector to establish a second base-load operator primarily based on modern nuclear technology.

"Murray & Roberts is committed to build further capacity in this field and will continue to pursue a meaningful participation in this national strategy," the group said in a statement.