The Abu Dhabi government has identified an Arabtec Holding consortium that includes Greek and Turkish firms as the preferred bidders for an estimated $3 billion contract to expand the emirate's international airport.

Abu Dhabi Airports Co (Adac), which is awarding the contract, is in discussions to finalise details of the contract and will officially announce the agreement in June, it said in an email statement on Sunday.

The consortium, which includes Turkey's TAV Insaat and Athens-based Consolidated Contractors Company (CCC), were on the cusp of securing the contract, four sources told Reuters in April.

TAV Insaat is a unit of Turkish builder Akfen Holding.

"Adac is currently in discussions with the preferred bidder to finalise all details of the contract prior to its signing, and before officially announcing the winning contractor of the Midfield Terminal Building at the capital's airport in June this year," the statement said.

Adac released the tender to six pre-qualified groups of joint companies to build the midfield terminal building at the Abu Dhabi airport and received all six proposals in November last year. The race was down to three final groups.

The other three short-listed groups were Bechtel Corporation-Enka-Al Jaber Group, Hyundai Engineering & Construction-Kumho Engineering & Construction-China State Construction Engineering Corporation-Al Shafar General Contracting Company and Samsung-ACC-Six Construct.

The 700,000 sq m terminal building is one of the key strategic infrastructure projects to be undertaken in Abu Dhabi, and will initially handle 30 million passengers per year. It will be the future home of Abu Dhabi's Etihad Airways.  - Reuters