Tough time for tolls

Spain’s tough economic conditions have resulted in difficult times for the country’s private toll highway operators. A fall in revenue has combined with a tough financial situation to make it difficult to pay off debts. Spain’s Ministry of Public Works is offering potential help with a new viability plan for tolled highways. This would involve merging weak, loss-making highways with long concession contracts, with highways that are profitable. Several options meet this criteria but the sector considers the
July 3, 2012 Read time: 2 mins
Spain’s tough economic conditions have resulted in difficult times for the country’s private toll highway operators.

A fall in revenue has combined with a tough financial situation to make it difficult to pay off debts.

Spain’s Ministry of Public Works is offering potential help with a new viability plan for tolled highways. This would involve merging weak, loss-making highways with long concession contracts, with highways that are profitable.

Several options meet this criteria but the sector considers the merger of 5729 Abertis' operator Iberpistas with some of the radial highways in capital Madrid. Other highways that could benefit from such plans include the Airport road network in Madrid; the Madrid-Toledo corridor and the Cartagena-Vera road.

917 ACS, 5729 Abertis, 980 OHL, and 3959 Sacyr are some of the shareholders of these loss-making projects. However, all the plans to save the highways that were put forward by the Ministry of Public Works have been refused by the Ministry of Economy, which wants to avoid a bail out of the sector and is not keen to reintroduce the former system with highways run by the state-owned Empresa Nacional de Autopistas (ENA).

For more information on companies in this article

Related Content

  • Seittsa set to take on management of bankrupt Spanish motorways
    July 31, 2017
    The Spanish government has given the green light for the state-owned transport infrastructure firm Seittsa to manage nine bankrupt toll motorways. The deal is for Seittsa to prepare the terms for their retender to private companies by the end of next year. Spanish media report that the cost is set to be lower than the €3.5 billion previously estimated by some analysts. The arrangement comes after three years of failed attempts by the government to step in and facilitate debt restructuring between the invest
    Read More
  • Metropistas picks up 10-year toll road extension in Puerto Rico
    May 3, 2016
    Metropistas has been granted a 10-year extension to its PR5 and PR22 toll road concessions in Puerto Rico, up to 20161. Metropistas, a subsidiary of Spanish operator Abertis, signed the agreement with the Puerto Rico Highways and Transportation Authority. The agreement entails payment of $115 million to the Authority and a redistribution of the company's future revenue. PR22 is the 83km San Juan-Arecibo highway and PR5 is the 4km urban San Juan-Bayamon highway.
    Read More
  • Colombia's roads to recovery
    February 8, 2012
    Colombia's Ministry of Transport is suggesting that the Avenida Longitudinal de Occidente (ALO) road project in Bogota should be carried out by Colombian energy company Empresa de Energia de Bogota (EEB).
    Read More
  • New bridge and road projects underway for Chile
    December 18, 2013
    Strong bids have been received for Chile’s Puente Industrial road bridge project, which will be built in Region VIII. Bidders included Spanish firm OHL as well as Besalco Concesiones-Concesiones Viarias Chile Tres and Sacyr Concesiones Chile. Work on the 2.5km bridge is expected to commence in 2014 and the project will cost some US$170 million to construct, with completion expected in 2017. The deal for the four lane bridge includes building access roads and involves a 30 year concession package. The Puente
    Read More

Highlighted Content