OHL Concesiones, pre-classified for the new bridge over the St. Lawrence project in Montreal

The St. Lawrence New Bridge Partnership consortium, led by OHL Concesiones, has been pre-classified by the Canadian Federal Government for participating in the call for tenders for the concession of the design, financing, building, operation and maintenance of the new bridge over the St. Lawrence River in Montreal.

The pre-classification has been obtained following a competitive process in which six teams participated, bringing together all of the world’s major infrastructure developers, construction companies and engineering firms.  Yesterday, the Government of Canada published the list of the three groups pre-classified for this project.

The pre-classification of the team led by OHL Concesiones, with the participation of firms such as the Dutch Fund DIF, Spain’s Acciona Concesiones and the Korean multinational Samsung, among others, is evidence of the confidence of the Government of Canada in the consortium for taking up a project involving enormous technical complexity, financial capacity and consolidated experience for added value.

The new toll bridge will replace the present Champlain Bridge, which is one of the most heavily traveled bridges in Canada, with a current traffic flow of close to 70 million vehicles yearly.  This infrastructure connects the city of Montreal to New York and is one of the most significant routes for the Canadian economy.

The construction process will commence in 2015, and the bridge will be opened to traffic in 2018, while the completion of a complex network of accesses on both shores of the St. Lawrence River is expected to take place around 2020.  The total cost of the project is estimated by the Government of Canada at between 3 and 5 billion Canadian dollars, and the concession period will be for 30 years as from the commencement of operations.

The new bridge over the St. Lawrence is the second project in which OHL Concesiones has been pre-classified at the present time in order to tender in Canada.  The first, in December 2013, was the Eglinton Crosstown LRT, a 20-kilometer-long urban light rail crossing Toronto from east to west in the province of Ontario.  The concession period is 30 years, and the investment planned is in excess of 5 billion Canadian dollars.  There are two groups pre-classified for submitting tenders for this project.