Coimbra, Portugal, July 26, 2024 (Lusa) - Infraestruturas de Portugal (IP), the state-owned company that oversees road and rail infastructure in Portugal, on Friday launched the international tender for a planned public-private partnership (PPP) for the second section of the high-speed line, between Oiã and Soure, with bids being able to be submitted until January 2025.
The concession tender, the second to be launched as part of the high-speed line project (the first concerns the section between Porto and Oiã), has a maximum award value of €1.6 billion, IP said in a news release sent to Lusa on Friday.
In addition to the construction of 71 kilometres of high-speed line (LAV), the PPP also includes the adaptation of the current Coimbra-B station and the quadrupling of the capacity of the stretch of the North line (between Lisbon and Porto) between Taveiro and Coimbra, it said.
A new "electric traction substation in the Coimbra area and connections from the LAV to the Northern Line" in the vicinity of Oiã, in the municipality of Oliveira do Bairro (Aveiro district), Adémia and Taveiro, in the municipality of Coimbra, and Soure (Coimbra district) are other interventions planned for this section.
The PPP contract, which is to have a term of 30 years, "includes a development period, which is estimated to be five years, and a period for making the infrastructure available, which is expected to last 25 years," IP said.
Bids for this tender launched by IP must be submitted by 6 January 2025.
The model for this second PPP for the high-speed line is identical to the first one, launched in January by the Socialist government led by António Costa (succeeded by a right-of-centre coalition government in April) in that case for the section between Porto Campanhã station and Oiã.
The public tender for the concession of the first PPP has so far seen only one bid submitted: the LusoLAV consortium, made up of Mota-Engil, Teixeira Duarte, Casais, Gabriel Couto, Alves Ribeiro and Conduril - all Portugal-based companies.
The launch of the third PPP, corresponding to the stretch between Soure and Carregado (in Alenquer, in Lisbon district) is scheduled for January 2026. Before then, it will have to be put out to public consultation for an Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) to be worked up.
The Lisbon-Porto high-speed rail line is expected to connect the country's two main cities in around an hour and 15 minutes.
According to IP's forecasts, Coimbra will be a 50-minute trip from Lisbon and 30 minutes from Porto.
The first phase (Porto-Soure) of the high-speed line in Portugal should be ready by 2030, with the second phase (Soure-Carregado) expected to be completed in 2032, with a connection to Lisbon via the Northern Line.
The connection from Porto to Vigo, in Galicia (Spain), scheduled for 2032, will have stations at Francisco Sá Carneiro Airport, Braga, Ponte de Lima and Valença (Viana do Castelo district).
In total, according to the previous government, the investment costs for the Lisbon-Valença axis are around €7 billion to €8 billion.
JGA/ARO // ARO.
Lusa
