Colombia's national road institute Invías will announce the awardee for the construction of La Línea tunnel on November 10, Invías project manager Juan Esteban Gil told BNamericas.
Related content
Companies / Entities
Keywords
A total of eight consortiums submitted offers for the project, said Gil.
These are: Korean consortium Bosco-Daewoo; Colombian consortium Conlínea; Colombian-Brazilian consortium Mario Huertas-OAS; Italian-Colombian consortium Impregilo-Conalvías; a Colombian-Chinese consortium that includes local firm APA; a Colombian-Chinese consortium that includes local firm Bergel & Castellanos; a Mexican-Colombian consortium that includes local company Álvarez Collins; and a consortium comprised of Colombia's Grupo Nulle, along with an Ecuadorian and a Mexican firm.
The initiative is a major infrastructure development project designed to optimize heavy and light cargo land transport, reducing travel time between capital Bogotá and the country's Buenaventura port from over 12 hours currently to eight hours, Gil added.
The project will require an estimated investment of 703bn pesos (US$394mn). Work proposals cannot exceed 70 months.
The project will be awarded to the consortium that submitted the lowest offer, said Gil.
The deadline to submit offers had been set for August 29 after having been pushed back several times, and was finally extended to September 29 following requests submitted by firms such as OHL, Conciviles and Inacon.
A total 171 firms expressed interest in the tender process, including 107 Colombian companies and 64 international firms, from countries such as Spain, Japan, China, Canada, Italy, Brazil and Germany.
The bidding rules permitted international firms to submit offers without local partners.
The tender process is being monitored and supervised by the presidential anti-corruption division to guarantee full transparency.
