Spotlight: 3 major Mexican infra tenders planned for this year

While Mexico’s President Andrés Manuel López Obrador does not plan to start many infrastructure projects in the remaining two years of his six-year term, there are three major tenders confirmed for 2023. 

These are the 3.5bn-peso (US$187mn) Tunal II dam in the state of Durango, the 25bn-peso García-Monterrey airport rail link in Nuevo León state, and the 10 industrial park projects in the Tehuantepec isthmus region, between Oaxaca and Veracruz states.

The most recent update on these tenders concerned the parks, which will be installed along the 300km rail line that the government is rehabilitating in the southeast, to connect the ports of Salina Cruz in Oaxaca and Coatzacoalcos in Veracruz.

López Obrador said Wednesday that the tender calls will be released soon and that four of these will be turned into wind farms with financing from the US. The government has been securing eight 500ha areas where a special tax regime will be applied to attract companies to the parks.

The other project that could be tendered in the near-term is the Durango dam. 

The federal government included almost 400mn pesos in the 2023 budget to allow the PPP project to kick off this year.

The contract that will be auctioned will include design, construction, expansion, equipment, operations and maintenance, and some complementary works. 

The dam’s curtain will be built 24km southeast of Durango on the El Tunal River to deliver 30Mm3/y (million cubic meters per year). It also involves a 2,700l/s water treatment plant, a 2,700l/s pumping plant, two aqueducts with extensions of 10km and 7km, respectively, and an intake for extracting water from the Guadalupe Victoria reservoir.

Regarding the train project, the Nuevo León government launched a consultancy tender in December for the interurban line that will connect San Pedro Garza García municipality with Monterrey’s international airport, in Apodaca municipality. 

Once awarded, the contract will be completed in three months after which the government will launch the main tender for the 62km line.  

When Nuevo León governor Samuel García took office in October 2021, he vowed to have the project completed in 2024.