İçtaş-Astaldi win third Bosphorus bridge bid

ANKARA - Anatolia News Agency

The total investment for the Northern Marmara Highway Project is estimated at 4.5 billion Turkish Liras, says Transportation Minister Yıldırım. Hürriyet photo

Turkey’s İçtaş İnşaat Sanayi Ticaret and Italy’s Astaldi consortium won a bid yesterday for a part of the Northern Marmara Highway Project, which includes a third bridge over the Bosphorus.

İçtaş İnşaat-Astaldi won the bid held at the Highway Authority in Ankara by proposing plans to complete the project in the shortest period of time, 10 years, two months and 20 days, while its only final challenger, the Cengiz İnşaat-Kolin İnşaat-Limak-Makyol İnşaat-Kalyon İnşaat Consortium, submitted a much longer time-frame of 14 years, nine months and 19 days.

The Salini-Gülermak consortium was omitted from the tender since its proposal envisioned grounding the legs of bridge in the water as opposed to land, a project pre-requisite.

First section in 36-months
“The Odayeri-Paşaköy section of the project will be completed in 36 months with an investment of approximately 4.5 billion Turkish Liras,” Transportation Minister Binalı Yıldırım said yesterday when disclosing the bid winner at a press conference following the end of the tender. He added that they expected the third Bosphorus Bridge to be open to the public by the end of 2015 and is also expected to be connected to Turkey’s rail system.

Four companies submitted bids for the initial tender on April 20; Mapa İnşaat was subsequently eliminated because it did not achieve the required 70 points for technical sufficiency.

Italian Astaldi Astaldi is one of the most successful contractors in Italy operating in the transportation infrastructure, water and renewable energy and the civil and industrial building sectors. Astaldi is active in over 24 countries and its projects include the construction of hospitals, subways, bridge bypassse and roads.

İçtaş İnşaat’s fields of activities include the construction of housing development projects, business centers, public buildings, hotels, health facilities, schools, military buildings and camps, power plants, turnkey delivery industrial buildings, roads, bridges, seaports, airports, potable water supply facilities, wastewater treatment plants, irrigation systems as well as superstructure and infrastructure rehabilitation and renovation works. In addition it is the first company in Turkey, which has implemented a project for clearing un-detonated munitions and mines.

İçtaş has built several airports in cities like Saint Petersburg Russia and Baky Azerbaijan. İçtaş is also currently construction the Istanbul-Ankara high-speed train project.