Spanish construction companies have set their sights on the biggest infrastructure project to be tendered this year in the Iberian Peninsula: the high-speed railway line that will connect Lisbon with Oporto. According to the newspaper El Economista, ACS, Ferrovial, Sacyr, FCC, OHLA and Acciona are outlining the consortiums to bid for the first tenders of the infrastructure, whose development has been structured in three phases to be completed in 2030 and which has a total budget of €11 billion.
Spanish construction companies are negotiating among themselves and with Portuguese companies, mainly, the creation of alliances to compete in the first two tenders, which are expected to start next summer. Specifically, the first phase of the project contemplates the tender for the route between Oporto and Aveiro, with an estimated budget of €1.65 billion, and for the section between Aveiro and Soure, with an estimated investment of €1.3 billion. The two contracts are therefore worth almost €3 billion (€2.95 billion). The Portuguese government has obtained €1 billion in European funds for their financing (€500 million for each section).
After years of discussions, the Portuguese government announced last September the plan to connect Lisbon and Porto by high-speed train, with the aim of also linking Vigo and thus connect Portugal with Spain’s AVE network. The aim is to link the country’s two main cities in one hour and 15 minutes, reducing to less than half the time it takes with the current railway line (two hours and 49 minutes).
The project, with a route of around 300 kilometres, has been divided into three phases. The first will connect Porto with Soure and this section will be completed in 2028, reducing the journey time to Lisbon to one hour and 59 minutes. The second, between Soure and Carregado, will be executed between 2026 and 2030 and will reduce the time to one hour and 19 minutes. And the third, to Lisbon, is expected from 2030 to set the journey time at one hour and 15 minutes. At the same time, between 2026 and 2030, the connection between Oporto and Vigo will be made in two phases, to reduce the journey time to 50 minutes.
