Greece’s Aktor wins Tirana-Elbasan tunnel construction

TIRANA, March 21 – Greece’s Aktor has been announced the winner of an international tender to build a tunnel linking capital Tirana to neighbouring central Albanian city of Elbasan in the shortest possible way, Greek media report while the state authorities have not officially announced the winning company. Aktor, which is one of the largest construction companies in Greece, a member of Ellaktor Group, won the international tender after offering 83 million dollars to build the 2.3 km long tunnel, outbidding seven other international companies who submitted bids varying from 54 percent to 81 percent of the initial 150 million dollar price tag set by the Albanian government.
The Bechtel-Enka consortium which last year successfully completed the Rreshen-Kalimash highway including a giant tunnel linking Albania to Kosovo, three Greek companies, and three other companies from Italy, Croatia and Slovenia also participated in the race.
The tunnel is expected to be completed within 18 months once the contract has been signed and possibly open to traffic within 2012. The Tirana-Elbasan highway will be the first segment of southern road axis and an important hub of the Corridor 8 project with Italy, Macedonia and Bulgaria. The highway, expected to cut the distance to Elbasan to 31 kilometres, down from 48 currently, will have four lanes and two tunnels, 2.3 and 2.1 km long each, saving passengers to the central Albanian city of Elbasan 40 minutes compared to the current mountainous road. Designed to follow the shortest possible trajectory, the new highway will have a maximum speed of 110 km/h, taking passengers only 15 to 20 minutes to arrive in Elbasan
The Islamic Development Bank (IDB) has alo recently approved last week 222.7 million dollars to finance the Tirana-Elbasan highway, according to the Qatar News Agency.
The Tirana- Elbasan highway is considered the biggest infrastructural project government intends to build in this four-year term after the Durres-Kukes-Morine highway linking Albania to Kosovo, whose works were only fully completed last October after the opening of the second Thirre tunnel.