The construction of the high-speed rail line between Kenitra and Marrakech continues to award its contracts at a steady pace. According to documents consulted by TelQuel, the National Railways Office (ONCF) has selected the Moroccan company Jet Contractors for the construction of the Hassan II Grand Stadium station, located in the Benslimane prefecture. The awarded amount totals more than 415 million dirhams.
The competition was tight. Seven companies submitted their bids, including Travaux Généraux de Construction de Casablanca (TGCC), the EMB/Somachame consortium, SGTM, Construction Management Services, Sogea Maroc, and the Urbagec/Separator SA consortium. After the review of the technical files, the China Overseas Engineering Group/China Railway 5 consortium was disqualified.
Jet Contractors ultimately won the contract as the lowest compliant bidder, with a proposal nearly 70 million dirhams lower than the highest bid.
A station on the doorstep of the Grand Stadium
The Hassan II Grand Stadium station will be built in the Benslimane prefecture, in the immediate vicinity of the future Grand Stadium, whose construction is planned for the 2030 World Cup co-hosted by Morocco, Spain, and Portugal. This positioning makes it a structure with significant symbolic and logistical weight: the station will have to absorb the passenger flows linked to major sporting competitions while ensuring daily service on the high-speed line.
According to documents consulted by TelQuel, the services entrusted to Jet Contractors follow a turnkey approach. The company will be responsible for the entirety of the station construction work, platform surfacing, and the development of outdoor spaces, including intermodal zones, as well as landscaped and commercial areas.
The documents also detail an extensive technical scope: earthworks, structural shell, waterproofing, steel framework and roofing, electricity, air conditioning, finishes, plumbing, carpentry, platform shelters, and green spaces.
A program of 9 parallel lots
The Grand Stadium station is only one element of a much larger program. As established by the documents consulted by TelQuel, the ONCF has simultaneously launched the construction of all the stations, technical centers, and maintenance facilities for the future line, divided into 9 lots. The second lot covers the Casa Sud station, the third covers the Marrakech Gueliz station and the Marrakech technical center, while lots 4 and 5 concern the Casablanca and Rabat-Sale airport stations, respectively.
Lots 6, 7, and 8 cover a vast set of intermediate stations and maintenance facilities, from Sidi Taibi to Settat by way of Hay Mohammadi, Ain Sebaa, Sidi Maarouf, Nouvelle Medina, and the Marrakech stadium. Lot 9, for its part, groups together the Nouaceur and Fes technical centers as well as the Meknes and Sidi Kacem maintenance facilities. All these facilities must be operational before the kickoff of the 2030 World Cup.
Jet Contractors, a veteran of railway construction
This award is part of an already established relationship between Jet Contractors and the ONCF. The publicly traded company had landed the sixth lot of civil engineering work for the Kenitra-Marrakech high-speed line for an amount of 2 billion dirhams, establishing itself as the second Moroccan operator selected in this consultation after TGCC. The company had, moreover, already delivered the Tangier high-speed station.
As TelQuel has regularly documented, the Kenitra-Marrakech high-speed line project involves a panel of leading international players. On the civil engineering side, the Chinese companies China Railway No. 4 Engineering and Shandong Hi-Speed Engineering Construction landed the 2 most important lots, for 3.4 and 4.05 billion dirhams, respectively. On the technological front, the Italian firm SITE was awarded 2 contracts covering telecommunications and cybersecurity for a total budget of 1.46 billion dirhams.
With the Grand Stadium station now awarded, the construction of the reception infrastructure enters its operational phase, less than 4 years before kickoff.
