Panama City's third metro line tender sees 7 companies prequalify

Seven out of the nine companies that submitted proposals to prequalify for the contract to build Panama City's third metro line have been chosen to participate in the upcoming tender.

The results were based on a review conducted by an evaluation committee and approved by the Japanese international cooperation agency JICA, state-owned operator Metro de Panamá announced in a news release.

The seven pre-qualified companies are the following:

1. Chinese state-owned company China Railway Group Limited;

2. South Korean consortium Consorcio HP Joint Venture, comprised of companies Hyundai Engineering & Construction, and Posco Engineering & Construction;

3. Consorcio ACPC Línea 3, formed by Spain's Acciona Construcción and Chinese firm Power Construction Corporation of China Limited. (PowerChina);

4. Chinese consortium Consorcio Oriental Metro Línea 3, comprised of powerhouses China Harbour Engineering Company (CHEC), and Beijing Urban Construction Group;

5. Spanish-Mexican-Korean consortium Consorcio Línea 3 FCC-CICSA-SKEGFCC, formed by FCC Construcción, Carso Infraestructura y Construcción, and SK Engineering & Construction;

6. Italian firm Astaldi, S.p.A.; and

7. Consorcio Línea 3 Monorail Panamá, a multi-country consortium comprised of Spanish construction firm OHL, Brazilian company Andrade Gutierrez Engenharia, and the Panamanian subsidiary of Portuguese conglomerate Mota-Engil.

The two firms which offers were dismissed included Italian company Salini Impregilo, and Chinese company China State Construction Engineering Corporation.

Metro de Panamá is now set to launch an international public tender for the project following the approval of JICA.

The US$2.6bn project is the largest public infrastructure initiative to be developed in the country after the Panama Canal expansion.

Work on the metro line will be financed with a loan from JICA and is expected to be completed within four or five years. The Japanese financing package also includes a US$35mn grant for the hiring of a project manager to assist Metro de Panamá in drafting tender documents and managing the tender process.

The line's total length is expected to be approximately 34km, with its construction set to be developed in two phases.

In the first phase, the east-west monorail line will be 26.8km long. It will connect Albrook - a station on line No. 1 - with the Ciudad del Futuro area in the Arraiján district of Panama Oeste province, west of the canal. The line is set to have 14 stations and it will run parallel to the Pan American highway, crossing the Panama Canal on the fourth bridge that is about to be built over the waterway.

The new line will initially have capacity to transport 20,000 people in one direction during rush hour, and every train will have six cars.