Chile opens sole bid for long-delayed route 66 concession

Chile’s public works ministry (MOP) opened a single technical bid for the Ruta 66 highway concession, also known as Camino de la Fruta, over a year and a half after the initial tender for the US$575mn project was launched.

The only bid came from Spanish firm Sacyr. On that front the head of the MOP’s concessions office, Hugo Vera, said that the offer came from “a serious company that knows about the industry,” the MOP said in a release.

The road was operated under a previous concession that was rescinded in 2014 at the request of then-concessionaire Ruta G-60 due to environmental costs. Ruta G-60, controlled by construction firm Comsa de Chile, is a unit of Spanish construction and infrastructure group Comsa Emte.

The tender for the new contract was launched in October 2017, but after several delays it was relaunched in October 2018 after the MOP slashed its budget by around US$100mn and divided the road into two main units.

As it is structured now, the contract entails improving 142km.
Unit A entails 66km between the Pelquén bypass and the town of El Manzano, both in O'Higgins region.

Unit B stretches 75km between the El Durazno bridge (O'Higgins region) and San Juan bypass (Valparaíso region), and will link to the port city of San Antonio.

If Sacyr passes the economic evaluation, its economic bid will be opened on June 26.

Earlier this year, the Spanish firm also won the concession for the La Serena-Los Vilos stretch of the Ruta 5 highway, a contract in which Sacyr was also the sole bidder.