SOFIA (Bulgaria), June 6 (SeeNews) – The construction of a 13 km section of Bulgaria's Struma motorway connecting the towns of Blagoevgrad and Krupnik in southwestern Bulgaria will be launched in August, the regional development ministry said on Tuesday.
Financing for the project has already been secured and a contractor has been selected, the ministry quoted regional development minister Nikolay Nankov as saying in a statement.
A consortium led by Bulgarian construction company Agromah has been selected to build the 13 km stretch, part of Lot 3.1, with the contract valued at 155 million levs ($89.1 million/79.2 million euro), according to data posted on the website of the government's road infrastructure agency.
Another stretch of Struma motorway, between the towns of Sandanski and Strumyani, is expected to be completed in 2019, according to the ministry’s statement.
Lot 3.1 also includes the construction of a 2 km-long Zheleznitsa tunnel, which would be Bulgaria's longest road tunnel. The contract for the construction of the tunnel has an indicative value of 250 million levs.
Nankov said last month that the government would relaunch the tender for construction of the tunnel, with construction works expected to start at the beginning of 2019.
The initial tender procedure for the Zheleznitsa tunnel was cancelled in April because the National Company Strategic Infrastructure Projects had misinformed the candidates that they could place offers higher than the indicative value of the project. Additionally, the authorities found that the technical offer of one of the participants in the tender had gone missing.
The construction of the motorway has been divided into four sections, of which three have already been completed: Dolna Dikanya – Dupnitsa (16.8 km), Dupnitsa – Blagoevgrad (37.4 km) and Sandanski-Kulata checkpoint at the border with Greece (14.7 km).
The remaining stretch, Blagoevgrad – Sandanski, dubbed Lot 3, is 62 kilometres long.
(1 euro = 1.95583 levs)