Iridium, the concessions company of the ACS Group, has been selected by the Portuguese government to build and operate the new Baixo Alentejo motorway that will link the centrally positioned townships of Sines and Beja.
The ACS Group company, world leader in the sector of transport infrastructure concessions, heads a consortium in which the Portuguese Edifer, Tecnovia and Conduril also participate. Moreover, the performance of the works will be driven by Dragados, lead house for the Construction area within the Group.
The award of this concession, for which bids had been submitted by the major Portuguese and Spanish infrastructure firms, will require the builder to construct 84 new kilometres of motorway, double 43 kilometres of highway and refurbish a further 220 kilometres of highways existing in the area, all of which adds up to a value of 410 million euros.
The project undertaking already has the financing assured by means of the provision of 25% In-house Funds and 75% from loans. Approximately half of this will come from a European Investment Bank (EIB) loan amounting to 210 million euros and the rest is assured with the banking pool that accompanied the consortium. The revenues from the project will come from availability payments and shadow tolls.
The Portuguese Government, through the public highway agency, Estradas de Portugal (EP), has a motorway development plan in progress with private participation for a value of Euro 5,000 million and through which the intention is to have 1,300 new kilometres of highways and motorways built in the country within two years distributed between ten concession projects, four of which have already been awarded and the rest are in different bid or offer phases.
The concessions segment of the ACS Group started its first toll motorway in Portugal in 2003, the A-23 or Scut Beira Interior. At the present time, Iridium is competing for other motorway concessions in Portugal and is a finalist in the tender to build the first stretch of the Portuguese high speed line, which will link Caia and Poceira, for a value of about 1,400 million euros.
Since the end of the summer, the concessions division has been appointed for major transport infrastructure projects, such as the Canadian A-30 motorway (jointly with Acciona), the I-595 in Florida and the I-69 in Texas, as well as the Diagonal Arterial Roadway in Catalonia. In the course of this year the ACS Group has also reaffirmed its world leadership in the transport infrastructure concessions sector in the ranking by number of projects obtained and undertaken.
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