American company chosen to build Rreshen-Kalimash road segment

TIRANA, Aug. 4 – An international commission chose the U.S. company Bechtel to build the Rreshen-Kalimash road segment, part of the Durres-Kukes-Morine highway. Bechtel offered the best offer out of four contenders. The company was unanimously voted and it is to start the pre-contractual negotiations with Albania. Bechtel outbid Austrian builder Strabag, Kuwaiti group Al-Kharafi and Croatia’s Konstruktor in the international tender that was closed last week. The commission also recommended that the second-listed company, Strabag, should be kept under consideration during this initial stage. Commission members said that responses to the requests were direct and transparent and that bidders had full understanding for the requests and the criteria.
Prime Minister Sali Berisha, whose government has set building the road to link to Kosovo as a priority, hailed the decision and met with commission members. “That is a great joy and a symbol for all of us,” he said at a ceremony of the 60th anniversary of the American Albanian National Organization.
Bechtel will build a 55-kilometre four-lane highway between Rreshen and Kalimash, divided into three separate stretches, a five-kilometer tunnel and viaducts. The technical projects for each of the three separate sections should be ready in December, March and April respectively, the transport ministry has said earlier. The construction project is estimated to cost between $200 million and $250 million and to be financed by foreign donors to Albania, the ministry has said. The Rreshen-Kalimash stretch is part of a key transport corridor between Albania’s largest Adriatic port Durres and the administrative centre of neighboring Kosovo, Prishtina.
The project for the Albanian part of the Durres-Prishtina motorway envisages construction of 111 kilometers of new roads and repair of 59 kilometers of existing roads. The road construction projects have a total estimated value of 400 million euro and will be financed mainly by foreign donors.
Bechtel is a privately owned global engineering, construction and project management company. It is headquartered in San Francisco and operates through 40 offices around the world and 40,000 employees. Bechtel reported $18.1 billion in revenue last year and new orders valued at $18.5 billion.