Romania's state road company (CNAIR) is ready to launch the tender for selecting a contractor for the second section of the Sibiu-Pitesti Motorway.

This is the last of the highway's five sections to be auctioned.

This 33-kilometer segment starts in Boita (Sibiu county) and ends near Cornetu (Valcea county).

It is one of the two sections that pose technical challenges, besides the mid-section (Cornetu-Tigveni). The contractor will have to build 50 passages, tunnels, and viaducts stretching over 16 kilometers, or almost half of the whole section, CNAIR general manager told Radio Romania Actualitati.

Thus, the estimated cost is also significant - nearly EUR 1 billion - according to the documentation prepared with the European Commission specialists' input.

For this section, as well as for the mid-section, CNAIR will use a pre-qualifying procedure to select experienced contractors that have the capacity to complete these challenging tasks in a reasonable time frame.

The design stage should take 18 to 24 months and the construction stage - up to 64 months, according to the CNAIR representative.

However, Economica.net points out that only the first section of the highway (Sibiu-Boita) is under construction (by Austrian group Porr) and could open by the end of 2022, according to the Pro Infrastructura association.

The other end-segment of the highway, Curtea de Arges-Pitesti, was awarded to Italian group Astaldi.

Meanwhile, the contract for the fourth section (Cornetu-Curtea de Arges) hasn't been awarded yet, and the procedures for the second and third sections, which are also the most difficult, are only in the early stages.

(Photo: Pixabay)

andrei@romania-insider.com