A consortium led by Spain’s FCC has won a $431m (€392m) contract to build a 10km road tunnel in Colombia, the longest tunnel in the South American country.
The contract includes the design, construction, operation and maintenance of the works over a period of 10 years.
The municipal government of Antioquia awarded the project to a consortium led by the FCC’s Citizen Services Group, which will maintain a 40% share, and a group of local businesspeople holding the remaining 60%, FCC said.
The Toyo tunnel in the Urabá Port – around 80km from MedellÃn – is part of a new 40km stretch of new road passing through the mountains of western Antioquia that will cut the car journey from MedellÃn to Urabá from six hours to three and a half.
FCC said the project is to be executed over 10 years, six of which will be dedicated to the construction phase and two and a half to operation and maintenance. The rest of the time will be spent on the design phase and any pre-construction work.
It is estimated that the Toyo tunnel works will directly create one thousand jobs.
The Citizen Services Group is currently carrying out the Bogota River dredging project and work on the El Dorado airport control tower in also in the capital, Bogota.
FCC Industrial is also working on the signalling system for the MedellÃn Metro.
Photograph: Location of the Toyo tunnel (FCC)
