Snapshot: Chile’s upcoming public works tenders

Chile’s public works ministry (MOP) plans to launch tenders in the reminder of Q1 for contracts that include airports, roads, flood control works and rural water systems.

MOP’s list of projects, studies and consultancy work to tender in the first three months of 2024 include 378 contracts entailing total investment of 744bn pesos (US$762mn), according to documents from the ministry’s planning office (DIRPLAN).

The largest contract is to upgrade southern city Osorno’s Cañal Bajo airport (55.2bn pesos), for which prequalification began last week.

Some of the other contracts scheduled to be put out to tender in the coming weeks are:

Balmaceda airport upgrade (16.2bn pesos).

The tender is expected to be launched this month and involves expanding and upgrading the airport in southern Aysén region.

The two runways will be extended by 301m each and see other improvements, documents from the social development ministry’s project database (BIP) show.

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Ñuble inter-municipal route improvements (15.6bn pesos).

The tender is also expected to be launched this month to pave a 35.5km road linking the intersections of routes N-50 and N-480, and the Ñipes bridge in Ñuble region’s Ranquil municipality. 

Civil works are expected to take 41 months. 

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Route 9 - New Penitente bridge (13bn pesos). 

The tender launch is also expected for February.

Work involves replacing a bridge in Laguna Blanca municipality in far south Magallanes region that dates back to 1980 and does not comply with safety standards introduced after the 2010 earthquake.

The new structure will be 120m long and the project includes access roads. Works are expected to take a year. 

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Rengo rainwater drainage system ­- Chapeton and Balmaceda stage (12.7bn pesos).

Expected to be auctioned during March, works involve installing two rainwater collectors on Balmaceda and Chapetón streets in Rengo (O’Higgins region).

The Balmaceda pipeline will be 845m long, while the one on Chapetón will be 821m.

This is the first stage of a plan to install 19 drainage collectors totaling 14.6km in Rengo's central-south neighborhoods, which is expected to need 41.1bn pesos for civil works.

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Pupuya rural water service expansion (12.1bn pesos).

The tender launch is also expected for March. The project aims to expand the coverage of a rural water system (SSR) in Navidad (O’Higgins region).

Works include a new water intake on the Rapel river, two storage tanks with capacity of 500m3 each, 21.1km of conduction pipelines and 120km of distribution pipelines, among others.

As for consultancy work, MOP’s concessions office plans to put out to tender advisory contracts for inspections of the O’Higgins hospital network and Concepción’s north access highway concession during March.

The same office will also launch consultancy tenders for the La Serena-Coquimbo, Viña del Mar-Reñaca and AMB-Santiago metro light rail links during this quarter, the last of which is for a line to connect the capital’s subway with the city’s international airport.