Chiloe bridge project in troubled waters

Chile's President Ricardo Lagos and public works minister Javier Etcheberry will meet Monday to discuss the future of the Chiloe Island bridge project in southern Region X, local press reported. The project has suffered a number of setbacks due to financial and technical reasons. Diario Financiero quoted the ministry's concession director Camilo Rojas as saying "...the project is very complex. [...] it is an emblematic project for the President, but one also has to be objective." Last month, a proposal submitted by a consortium that called for the government to provide a guarantee to build the bridge was rebuffed by finance minister Nicolas Eyzaguirre, who said: "We do not have space to be giving guarantees nor any other type of costs that are not [already] considered in [next year's] budget." In September, the ministry pushed back the bidding deadline, which had been envisioned for end-October, to February at the prospective bidders' request. The US$350mn project entails building a 2.64km four-lane traffic bridge across the Chacao Canal's shallowest point to Chiloe, as well as some 13.5km of access roads on each side. The concessionaire would operate the bridge for 30 years, recouping investment through tolls. Studies in 2002 estimated that some 3,000 vehicles/day would initially use the bridge, increasing to 15,000 in 2040. Consorcio Puente Bicentenario (Germany's Hochtief, the US' American Bridge and Chilean firms Besalco and Tecsa), Sweden's Skanska, France's Vinci and Grupo Challenger (France's Bouygues, Travaux Publics, the UK's Cleveland, Chile's Delta, Japan's IHI and France's Egis), are listed on the ministry's website as one of the project's interested bidders.