Chile’s Public Works ministry will call a tender in July inviting developers to bid on a 40-year, US$800-million concession to DBFOM the 5.2-km-long southern segment of a tunnel in Santiago that will link up with a 9.3-km tunnel coming in from the north. Together the two tunnels, known as Vespucio Oriente, will form the eastern hump of Santiago’s 77-km Americo Vespucio ring road. They are the last sections of the ring road to be built and will remove a bad choke point of street level traffic between Vespucio Norte and Vespucio Sur, the express toll motorways that are also part of the ring road.

A Spanish team of OHL-Sacyr holds the concession for the northern tunnel segment of Vespucio Oriente. OHL-Sacyr hopes to begin construction in early 2017, after fulfilling environmental requirements. The planned tunnel will provide 8,000 vehicles per hour traffic flow capacity.