SOFIA (Bulgaria), December 6 (SeeNews) – Bulgaria's motorway tunnel through Kresna gorge, part of Lot 3 of Struma motorway, is expected to cost some 830 million euro ($1.13 billion) and to start in 2016, local media said on Friday, quoting state enterprise NCSIP, the beneficiary under the EU-funded operational program Transport.
The 15-kilometer tunnel is planned to be completed by 2020, Asen Antov, the CEO of the National Company Strategic Infrastructure Projects (NCSIP), was cited as saying by daily newspaper Standart.
The design phase of Lot 3 of Struma motorway, connecting the Bulgarian capital with the Greek border, will be completed in 2014. Afterwards Bulgaria will open a tender procedure for the construction of the lot.
The Struma motorway, with a total length of 173.28 km, is part of pan-European transport Corridor IV. Its construction is divided into four sections: Dolna Dikanya – Dupnitsa, Dupnitsa – Blagoevgrad, Blagoevgrad-Sandanski, and Sandanski-Kulata. Lot 1 was completed in the summer, Lot 4 is under construction and Lot 2 and Lot 3 are at a design stage.
($=0.732 euro)