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

  • Colombian tunnel project faces further delays
    September 16, 2014
    The Colombian Government is looking to cancel the contract for the construction of the La Linea tunnel. This project has already been beset by an array of problems since it was first conceived and now looks set to be further delayed. Work was supposed to have been 20% complete by March 2014, however a series of delays had put the project far behind schedule and by March 2014, only 12% of the work had been carried out. In June 2014, the project was supposed to be 50% complete, but work was in fact just 14% h
  • New Colombian highways being built
    April 26, 2021
    New Colombian highways are being built at present.
  • Third phase for Colombia’s complex PPP project
    September 15, 2017
    Work is underway on the third stage of Colombia’s Bogota-Villavicencio road project. This 24km project is being carried out under the PPP model by the concession holder, Concesionaria Vial Andina (Coviandina). The project is complex and includes the construction of seven tunnels in all, which have a total length of 10.7km, as well as 21 bridges and overpasses measuring 3.8km in all. Coviandina has bored around 930m of the total tunnel length at present.
  • Spanish highway project to get EIB A-rated bond issue?
    April 20, 2012
    The European Investment Bank (EIB) is reported to be in talks with the sponsors of the A-66 Benavente-Zamora highway public private partnership (PPP) in Spain over a possible bond financing deal, which would see the Bank provide subordinated debt for an A-rated bond issue. The possible bond issue would be a further greenfield project to launch the European Union’s Project Bond 2020 initiative, with its initial pilot stage being managed by the EIB.