Halliburton subsidiary in running for Olympic gold

[Fiona]

A SUBSIDIARY of Halliburton, the controversial American oil and defence-services group, has been short-listed to oversee the construction of the £2.4 billion Olympic site in London.

Kellogg Brown & Root made its name in Britain in offshore oil construction and recently secured a vital role in the programme to build two aircraft carriers for the Royal Navy. It has bid for the prestigious Olympics contract in a joint venture with Capita Symonds, a construction consultancy that is owned by the FTSE 100 group Capita.

The bid is one of six that is understood to have been short-listed by the London Development Agency (LDA), which has now passed the negotiations on to the interim Olympic Development Authority (ODA).

The full ODA will not be set up until March next year, after enabling legislation has been passed.

The other bidders are: British construction group Amec; the Anglo-Australian group Bovis Lend Lease; American construction and consulting group Parsons Brinckerhoff; consulting engineers Arup with Gardiner & Theobald; and Mace, with accountants Deloitte Touche.

Final bids are expected to be submitted in November, with a choice made early next year. The winning firm will be expected to manage the construction of the Olympic Park in east London, a complex task involving several big construction projects, including the building of an Olympic village and stadium.

Industry sources said a key omission from the shortlist was Bechtel, the American project-management specialist that has often ridden to the rescue of large UK infrastructure projects.

Bechtel was called in by the government to save the Jubilee Line Tube extension ahead of the Millennium celebrations, and also bailed out the Channel Tunnel and Limehouse Link contracts. It is not clear whether Bechtel submitted a bid.

Consultants were interviewed by the LDA last week for a contract to design the Olympic Park and its infrastructure. Sources close to the process said a choice could be made as soon as next week.

Meanwhile, interviews for the key post of ODA chief executive will take place in a fortnight. Ken Livingstone, the London mayor, said last week that the successful candidate could come from outside Britain.

timesonline.co.uk