Panama City: The Panama Canal Authority (ACP) received Tuesday proposals from three consortia that submitted bids for the locks construction, the most important contract of the Canal expansion project. The three bidders included: the consortium led by US'Bechtel-Taisei and Mitubishi from Japan, with the subcontractor Wuchang Shipyard from China; the consortium led by Spain's ACS accompanied by several Spanish, German and British companies and the consortium led by the Spanish group Sacyr Vallehermoso, and companies from Italy, US, the Netherlands and Belgium. The fourth pre-qualified consortium, led by France's Bouygues Construction and accompanied by Alstom and several construction companies from Brazil did not present proposals. "We are very glad to have three out of four of the pre-qualified concsortia and I do respect the business decision made [by the group led by Bouygues]," said ACP Administrator Alberto Aleman.
"We stand committed to hiring a consortium that meets all technical requirements and provides the best value for the project. We are honored and pleased to receive submissions from leading firms in the industry and we will start reviewing the proposals immediately," he said. The ACP expects the evaluation process to last until June.
A group of 40 local and internal experts will review the technical proposals while the envelopes containing the price proposals, including the ACP owner's price, were locked in a vault at Panama's National Bank and will not be opened until the technical evaluations are completed. The results will be counted and disclosed in a public forum during which the ACP will award the winner of the contract, which may represent over half of the $5.25Bn total cost of the expansion. The contract will be awarded on "best value" ?" 55% for the technical aspect and 45% for the bid price. [04/03/09]
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