Bidders Announced For Ruta Del Sol Concessions [See Updated Post Announcing Winners]

[UPDATE: Winners Announced For Ruta Del Sol Concessions]

Cooperation is the name of the game in the Ruta Del Sol bidding process, apparently, as consortia dominated the concession bidding for each of the three segments of the massive highway project that will connect Bogota with the Caribbean coast near Barranquilla.  In a prior post on this site, I covered the announcement of the Ruta del Sol concession that describes the massive project and furnishes a number of interesting and useful links to videos and images of the project as well as the official Ruta Del Sol website.

Dinero.com reported the five consortia that are involved in the bidding for the Ruta del Sol concessions.  The consortia consist of Chinese, Spanish, Brazilian, Argentine and Colombian companies.  Participants were announced after bidding closed yesterday. 

The closing of biddinng is another very strongly positive sign for the projects.  Another sign is financing.  The Ruta del Sol website online document room contains two expressions of interest to finance the winning bidder from IFC (US$100m) and CAF (US$150M).

The names of the consortia and how they are made up are as follows:

1. Consorcio Vial Helios: Carlos Alberto Solarte (Colombia); Conconcreto SA (Colombia); IECSA SA (Argentina), CSS Builders SA (Colombia).

2. Vias del Sol Highway SA Promise of Future Society: Obrascon Huarte Lain SA (Spain); CONCAY SA (Colombia); Pavimentos de Colombia SA (Colombia); Aguilar Construcciones SA (Colombia); ICEIN (Colombia).

3. Promise of Future Society Plural Structure Concessionary Ruta del Sol SAS [Estructura plural promesa de sociedad futura Concesionaria Ruta del Sol S.A.S]: Constructora Norberto Odebrecht (Brazil), Odebrecht Investimentos em Infra-structure (Brazil); CSS Builders SA; Estudios y Proyectos del Sol SA – EPISOL (Colombia).

4. Highway Development Consortium Ruta del Sol: Mario Huertas Cotes (Colombia); Constructora OAS Ltda (Brazil); Procopal SA (Colombia); Routes Engineering SA (Colombia); Meyan SA (Colombia).

5. Temporary concession union “RDS”: MNV S.A. (Colombia); Gas Kapital GR SA; China Railway Shisiju Group Corporation (China); Great Ways Investment and Engineering Ltd (Colombia) Inversiones Grandes Vías e Ingeniería Ltda (Colombia)]

The project sectors and related bidders are:

Sector 1 (Villeta – The Koran, 78 miles):

• Consorcio Vial Helios
• Vias del Sol Highway SA Promise of Future Society
• Highway Development Consortium Ruta del Sol

Sector 2 (Puerto Salgar – San Roque, 528 kilometers):

• Vias del Sol Highway SA Promise of Future Society
• Structure promise of future society plural Concessionary Ruta del Sol SAS
• Temporary concession union  RDS

Sector 3 (San Roque – Yé Cienaga, Carmen de Bolivar – Valledupar, 465 kilometers):

• Temporary concession union RDS

According to the press release from Inco, the government concessions agency,

Ruta del Sol is the largest project that has developed in recent decades in the country and one of the largest infrastructure projects in Latin America with an estimated total investment of $ 5.7 billion (2008), which is approximately U.S. $ 2,600 million dollars.