LESS than two months after the first tender for the construction of highways through public-private-partnership (PPP) projects started, the Transport Ministry announced a tender for the second package of the projects. This time seven applicants submitted documents required for participation in the tender for construction and operation of three R1 dual carriageway stretches between Nitra and Tekovské Nemce, as well as the northern bypass of the city of Banská Bystrica through PPP projects, the SITA newswire wrote on February 8.
The applicants include two foreign individual bidders and five international groups comprised of 17 firms with one of them also representing Slovak companies Doprastav and Váhostav, Eva Benešová from the Transport Ministry told SITA.
Swedish company Skanska Infrastructure Development AG and French company Eiffage Travaux Publics are independent bidders in the R1 highway construction tender. The French company Vinci Concessions S.A. is in a group with Dutch partner ABN Amro Highway B.V.
A six-member consortium, including Doprastav and Váhostav-SK, is led by French company Bouygres Travaux Publics SA. German Hochtief PPP Solutions GmbH leads a four-member consortium. Spanish firm Obrascón Huarte Laín S.A. is in a group with Czech firms OHL ŽS and ŽS Brno. The next two-member consortium is led by Austrian Strabag AG. Twelve of the nineteen firms also expressed interest in joining the first PPP highway tender for construction and operation of the five D1 highway stretches between Martin and Prešov. The two above mentioned Slovak companies are members of the same consortium, which concurrently applied to the D1 highway tender.
The second tender applies to three prepared stretches of the R1 dual carriageway Nitra - Selenec, Selenec - Beladice and Beladice - Tekovské Nemce at a total length of 47 kilometres, as well as the northern bypass of Banská Bystrica, which is 5.7 kilometres long. The cost of construction of R1 Nitra - Tekovské Nemce is estimated at just under Sk17 billion without VAT. The Transport Ministry will shortlist up to a maximum of four candidates. The contract with the R1 tender winner should be signed before Christmas of this year.
The third tender will focus on the most technically complicated D1 stretches with several tunnels between Žilina and Martin, 29 kilometres in length.
