Uruguay in process of awarding US$180mn in road contracts

Uruguay’s state-owned road concessionaire CVU is in the process of awarding 13 contracts worth around 2.78 billion pesos (US$180 million), although the bids for some of them were opened over a year ago.

The oldest contract at this stage is a 366mn-peso project to build four bridges in San José department, for which the offers were announced in January 2023, according to the CVU website. 

Authorities have cited the long award times as one of the reasons behind Uruguay’s 2020 decision to abandon road PPPs, opting instead to favor the CREMA (construction, rehabilitation and maintenance) contract model for new projects.

The five largest projects in CVU’s award phase are the following: 

Routes 101 and 102 distributor road (2.59bn pesos*): The biggest contract in awarding phase and the most recent to reach said stage. Three bids were opened on September 5. The project involves building a 3.26km distributor road in the intersection of Routes 101 and 102, located in Colonia Nicolich municipality (Canelones department), documents show. 

Route 1 rehabilitation. route 22-route 50 section (1.99bn pesos*): Offers were opened on October 31 from three bidders. This is a CREMA contract that entails upgrading 31.5km of roads in Colonia department. Works also include widening a 15.7km section of the same road section.

Route 26 rehabilitation. Arroyo Sarandí de Barceló-route 18 section (481mn pesos): Nine firms submitted offers in March 2023. The project entails rehabilitating 23.3km in Cerro Largo department.

Route 1. Replacement of bridges over Pereira, Pavón, La Boyada and Cufré rivers (366mn pesos): Five bidders presented offers on January 31, 2023. The project involves four bridges across the Pereira (121m), Pavón (78m), La Boyada (62m) and Cufré (155mn) rivers in Cerro Largo department. 

Route 12 rehabilitation. Tala-San Ramón section (334mn pesos): 10 bids were opened in June 2023. The contract entails works on 17.9km of roads in Canelones department

So far this year CVU has inked two contracts worth 1.33bn pesos. 

Although it is listed as a private company, CVU’s only shareholder is development agency CND, which in turn is controlled by the finance ministry and state-owned bank BROU. 

Last year the concessionaire spent US$667mn on works and services under its concession contract, a big increase from the US$384mn seen in 2022, according to the firm’s annual financial report.

* In these cases, CVU did not list a reference budget, so the lowest bid is used as a base price.