The Tentative Bidding Terms for the concessions of Stage I of the Highways and Safe Routes project were published.
The Argentine Ministry of Finance and the Argentine Ministry of Transport, through the Argentine Highway Department (Dirección Nacional de Vialidad), released the Tentative Bidding Terms for the public tender of the concession of road corridors of the Highways and Safe Routes projects (Stage I). These concessions will be structured under the PPP regime, established by Law 27,328 and its Regulatory Decree (No 118/2017, as modified by Decree No. 936/2017) and will be the first implementation of this program of financing works promoted by the Federal Government.
All the bids will be held under a multiple stage mode so the evaluation and comparison of the bids will be made in two phases and through successive pre-selections. The contracts include the execution of works of design, construction, expansion, improvement, repair, remodeling, operation, maintenance and commercial exploitation of the road corridors.
The projects of Stage I are six different road corridors:
- Corridor A is comprised of 400kms of national route N°3 and 300 kms of national route N°226.
- Corridor B consists of the section of national route N°5 that goes from Luján to Santa Rosa, which is 538 kms long.
- Corridor C is comprised of three sections of national route N°7 (from Acceso Oeste Luján to the Córdoba/San Luis limit; from the San Luis/Mendoza limit to Palmira; and from Luján de Cuyo to Potrilleros), and by the section of national route N°33 that goes from General Villegas up to the intersection with national route N°7, making the corridor 875 kms long.
- Corridor E comprises sections of routes N°9, N°193, N°34, N°11, N°A008, and N°A012. The total length of the corridor is almost 400kms.
- Corridor F is comprised of a section of route N°33 and two sections of route N°9, for a total length of 630 kms.
- The South Corridor is comprised of 14 kms of the Ricchieri Highway, 6 kms of the Newberry Highway, and 125 kms of route N°205 and 121 kms of route N°3.
The Tentative Bidding Terms corresponding to Stage I can be downloaded from the website of the Argentine Highway Department. Documents containing the general bidding bases and conditions and general technical specifications exist and are applicable to all of the previously mentioned corridors. Additionally, every corridor has its own particular bidding bases and conditions.
The website also allows for the participation of all people interested in the preparation of the final texts through a mechanism of anonymous suggestions. To guarantee transparency and foster public confidence in the process, once the final text has been decided, all the alterations that result from this participation will be indicated.
Both the publication of the final text of the bidding documents and the call to bid are scheduled for December 26, 2017 and the deadline for submission of bids is scheduled for mid-February 2018. However, these dates are merely tentative and are subject to changes which may be mandated by the Argentine Highway Department. Changes to the schedule may be reflected on the website mentioned above.
More information:
Public-Private Partnership (PPP): Roads and Highways
Public-Private Partnership Contracts: Amendment of Regulations
New Bill on Trusts in Public-Private Partnership Contracts
This insight is a brief comment on legal news in Argentina; it does not purport to be an exhaustive analysis or to provide legal advice.