São Paulo governor signs bill for US$1.1bn Santos-Guarujá underwater tunnel PPP

The governor of Brazil’s São Paulo state, Tarcísio de Freitas, signed a bill to offer a PPP contact to build a 6bn-real (US$1.1bn) underwater road tunnel between the coastal cities of Santos and Guarujá.

The bill was approved recently by the state's legislature.

“The São Paulo government project for the Santos-Guarujá tunnel envisages the construction of a 1.5km long structure (870m of which will be submerged)… Once the project is implemented, the crossing between Santos and Guarujá will take less than five minutes," Rafael Benini, state secretary of investment partnerships, said in a statement.

The project, the first underwater road tunnel in Latin America, is a joint initiative involving the state and federal governments, Santos Port Authority (SPA) and the private sector. Of the financing, 86% will come in equal parts from the state and federal governments and the rest from the private sector.

The state government now awaits approval of the environmental license. The next step is to gather all updated documentation to submit the process for evaluation to the country's audit court, which is expected in December.

The notice for the PPP is expected to be published in the second quarter of 2025 and the auction held in the second half of next year.

OTHER CONTRACTS 

Meanwhile, the state government plans to move forward with a series of other auctions involving projected investments of 19.1bn reais, including roads, schools and a lottery, this month and during November.

"The auctions include lots for Rota Sorocabana, Novas Escolas (two school PPPs), the Loteria Estadual and Nova Raposo, with strategic projects that foresee improvements to 550km of highways, benefiting almost 25 municipalities in São Paulo, construction of 33 new schools to serve 35,000 students in primary and secondary education, in addition to 11,000 lottery service points," the state government said in a separate release.