Skip to main content

Colombia's roads to recovery

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).
February 8, 2012 Read time: 2 mins
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 5808 Empresa de Energia de Bogota (EEB). If state owned EEB completes the works, the Government expects to save US$518 million as well as cutting out the need for three years worth of additional studies and tenders. Meanwhile the tender process for the Autopista de las Americas highway project should close at the end of April 2010, with a decision to be made in June 2010. The 4.2km Guillermo Leon Valencia tunnel is now open for traffic. Vehicles driving from Melgar to Bogota will no longer have to travel via Nariz del Diablo, and journey times will be shortened by more than 30 minutes. The cost of this tunnel project was estimated at $70 million when announced in 2002. The Ministry of Transport reports that the Bogota-Giradot road project is progressing well although there have been some delays. The road project will improve communications between Central Colombia and the west as well as the Pacific Coast. Some 200km of double lane road projects have been built on average during the last two years and this could reach 300km in 2010. In addition, La Linea tunnel construction works are finally proceeding as planned and the road from Calarca to this tunnel is within schedule. The Bogota-Buenaventura road should be completed within a maximum of five years. The Colombian authorities have signed the extensions to the Ruta Caribe, Barranquilla-Cartagena and Cordoba-Sucre road concessions. These projects are worth $623 million. Other road projects worth have been put out to tender and contracts for these schemes will be signed in June 2010. By extending the concessions, the government will be able to ensure that the works are carried out, through road toll systems. The Colombian institute for concessions, 1314 INCO, has remarked that the Cordoba-Sucre and Ruta Caribe projects should take seven years to complete and encompass 484km of road improvements.

For more information on companies in this article

Related Content

  • Colombia’s popular highway tenders
    April 7, 2014
    International interest is strong in tenders opening in Colombia for the construction and management of 1,146km worth of highways. These form part of a package for 10 projects known as Autopistas para la Prosperidad, worth some US$4.75 billion in all. OHL has expressed an interest in the Autopista al Mar 2 and Autopista al Rio Magdalena 1 highway projects, which have been valued at around $1.9 billion.
  • IRF cooperation agreement with Columbia
    February 9, 2012
    IRF Washington announces strategic cooperation agreement with the Colombian Chamber of Infrastructure The IRF Washington Program Center (IRF WPC) and the Colombian Chamber of Infrastructure (CCI) have announced their intent to sign a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to cooperate on technology transfer, training and dissemination of best-practices in Colombia
  • New tunnel link proposed for Colombia
    July 23, 2013
    Even as work continues on La Linea tunnel in Colombia, the country’s government has received a proposal for an additional tunnel link. A consortium made up of Colombian companies and Italian firms has suggested building a new tunnel to link Quindio and Tolima. Odinsa, Mincivil, Impregilo and Salini are involved in the consortium and have suggested a PPP as being a possible model under which to construct the link, which could cost in the order of US$531 million and would be 8.5km long. The economic case for
  • Construction completion for Colombia concession contracts
    December 14, 2017
    Colombia’s massive road and highway development programme is still moving ahead, with a series of major concession projects due for completion by 2020. A consortium titled Via al Mar is on track to finish construction of the Cartagena-Barranquilla highway in August 2019, for which the company has a 25-year concession agreement. The tender process for the final stretches of the Ruta del Sol II highway will commence shortly.