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(Spain) Ministerio de Fomento interesting contract advertisements

Started by J N Winkler, July 07, 2011, 12:53:32 PM

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J N Winkler

After a painfully long hiatus, last Tuesday the Ministerio de Fomento--which manages the red de carreteras del Estado in Spain, including the majority of the autovíá and autopista mileage--advertised three major construction contracts:

12-GR-3560.T--A-7 eastern access to the port of Motril, in Granada province (€55 million)

12-GI-3110.T--A-2 Sils-Caldes, in Gerona province (€38 million)

23-H-3930--N-435 variante de poblaciones (town bypass) (in this case, a comprehensively grade-separated single carriageway) in Huelva province (€56 million)

These are all large projects.  The construction documentation (proyecto de construcción in Spanish) is available online for each project, the smallest being 800 MB in size while the largest is over 2.5 GB in size.

Spain had an overinflated housing sector going into the 2008 recession and is a member of the same group of troubled economies as Greece, Ireland, Portugal, and (sometimes) Italy ("PIGS" or "PIIGS," to use the too-cute acronyms) which are now spoken of as latter-day sick men of Europe.  I don't know where the money is coming from to build these projects, but I suspect that the PSOE (which is now in government) may have held these projects back temporarily in order to sweeten their re-election prospects.  Spain is due for a general election in 2012 and the PSOE, which has been in power continuously since a few days after the 11-M train bombings in 2004, is now very unpopular as a result of post-recession austerity measures.  Zapatero, presently secretary-general of the PSOE and prime minister of Spain, is standing aside to allow his deputy to take the party into the 2012 elections.

Two of these projects have ".T" suffixes in the project key numbers, which I have not previously seen in highway construction contracts advertised by Fomento.  In the case of 12-GI-3110.T, as far as I can tell from a cursory skim of the memoria, this is because the currently advertised project is considered obras de terminación (completion works) for a previous project, 12-GI-3110, which was advertised for construction in 2005 but was stopped after construction had begun.  A few years later Fomento prepared a "modifying project" (proyecto modificando--somewhat comparable to a large addendum) but this apparently did not result in resumption of construction.  In 2010, Fomento directed its consultant to compile a new set of construction documentation, under project key number 12-GI-3110.T, to incorporate the original proyecto with the changes made in the proyecto modificando.  I assume a similar story applies to the A-7 Motril port access project, but I have not yet checked the memoria.

Because I am interested in signing, I have already gone through the signing-related anejos and planos in these projects.  There are 67 sheets of pattern-accurate sign designs (compiled in Lena rather than the more usual CarDim) for the N-435 job, all attached to the anejos for permanent signing and traffic management.  Both of the terminación projects have title sheets for sign design appendices in the anejos, but the appendices themselves are absent.  This is frustrating, but on the other hand, this sort of Cheshire cat behavior is not unknown in Spanish construction documentation.
"It is necessary to spend a hundred lire now to save a thousand lire later."--Piero Puricelli, explaining the need for a first-class road system to Benito Mussolini


Chris

I believe the A-7 project is a re-tender, am I right? There were some problems with the previous constructor apparently, the A-7 is already seen under construction in Google Earth (and is even mapped as in operation, Google is notorious for showing autopistas and autovías in operation which are actually often 1 year or more from completion).

J N Winkler

Yes, the A-7 contract currently advertised is the second attempt to build the involved length of A-7.  The previous contract (12-GR-3560) was advertised in 2005 and awarded in 2006, but almost immediately the contractor encountered trouble with utilities which were not mapped in the proyecto (which had been prepared by Prointec).  There were landslides and other problems with soil instability which resulted in several orders for partial suspension of the works.  In 2010 Fomento revised the budget upward, closed out the existing construction contract, and had a separate consultant (Apia XXI) compile a new proyecto for completion of the outstanding work--which includes removal of debris from two landslides, some of the bridges, some of the paving, and all of the signing, delineation, and guardrail.

Interestingly enough, the original budget was upward of €84 million but the award amount was a good deal smaller--just under €50 million.  It looks like the engineering consultant cut corners when compiling the proyecto and the contractor bid too low and got caught out.
"It is necessary to spend a hundred lire now to save a thousand lire later."--Piero Puricelli, explaining the need for a first-class road system to Benito Mussolini

J N Winkler

In spite of Spain's ongoing money problems, the resources have been found to commit the A-66 autovía to construction between Zamora and Benavente in northwest Spain:

http://www.fomento.gob.es/MFOM/LANG_CASTELLANO/TABLON_ANUNCIOS/contrataciones/CONTRATACIONES/DG_CARRETERAS/CONCESION/autovias/concesion_obra/

This part of the A-66 is being advertised as a concession (financed presumably through some form of shadow tolling since there is no provision for erection of apparatus for toll collection in any of the proyectos de construcción) and is valued at €1.4 billion over thirty years.

The documentation, which includes complete proyectos de construcción and proyectos de trazado for all three lengths comprising this contract, in both source and PDF format, can be downloaded here:

http://www.fomento.gob.es/MFOM/LANG_CASTELLANO/TABLON_ANUNCIOS/contrataciones/CONTRATACIONES/DG_CARRETERAS/CONCESION/autovias/concesion_obra/documentacion_a66.htm

The files aggregate to 32.6 GB, the majority of the material being in split RAR archives of 700 MB each.  I attempted to download all of this over a residential cable connection, and discovered that the cable line (which works flawlessly for 99.99% of the other stuff I download) had too much noise to allow these RARs to download with consistent MD5 hashes, no CRC or unexpected end-of-archive errors, etc. even when my computer was plugged directly into the router.  (The instructions mention the necessity of a gestor de descargas and I was using Internet Download Manager for that purpose.)  I thought I might have to let this project go by, but then I remembered that universities in general tend to take an uncompromising approach to IT provision, so I took an old laptop to the nearest public university and let it do its thing.  After three hours I had all the files and they all uncompressed (to 45.4 GB) without any errors.  Thank God for university socialism.
"It is necessary to spend a hundred lire now to save a thousand lire later."--Piero Puricelli, explaining the need for a first-class road system to Benito Mussolini



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