Strabag starts building access road to Croatia's Peljesac bridge - report

Croatian road operator Hrvatske Ceste (HC) brought in Strabag and its local partners to works on the 12 km long Duboka-Sparagovici road section on Wednesday, Poslovni reported.

Strabag has offered to build the Duboka-Sparagovici section for 487 million kuna ($72 million/65 million ) in 33 months.

In October, Croatia signed two deals worth some 990 million kuna in total, hiring Strabag to build the northern access road and Greece's Avax for the construction of the southern access road to the Peljesac bridge.

Avax will build in 28 months the sections Sparagovici-Prapratno and Prapratno-Doli that make up the 18 km long southern access road to the bridge. It has proposed to build the two road sections for 511 million kuna.

The European Commission is providing 85% of the financing needed for building the access roads to the bridge, the government in Zagreb has said.

The construction of the Peljesac bridge started in July 2018 after HC signed a 2.08 billion kuna deal for the project with a Chinese consortium led by CRBC. Croatia hopes to see construction works completed in January 2021.

The bridge will connect the peninsula of the same name with the rest of mainland Croatia over the Adriatic, providing an alternative route to crossing the Neum Corridor - a strip of the Adriatic coastline situated in Bosnia and Herzegovina between these two parts of Croatia.

The Peljesac bridge will be 55 m high and 2.4 km long, with four lanes.

(1 euro = 7.43904 kuna)