The railway company hopes that the bids submitted in the newly issued tender will not run twice above the estimated price of the project, as it happened in the first tender.
“... the works covered by the tender have been split into three parts – in case the contractors wish to share the segment under reconstruction in parts. The tender is expected to interest many companies and healthy competition should help us get the top-level services at an optimal price,” Rimantas Šiaudinis, Rail Baltica project manager, said in a press release issued by Lietuvos Geležinkeliai on Monday.
Hidrostatyba and two consortia, Eurovia Lietuva and Czech-owned Eurovia as well as Panevėžio Keliai (Panevėžys Roads) and Alkesta, submitted bids in the first tender. Their bids covering four segments of Rail Baltica were worth nearly 600 million litas (EUR 174m).
Tenders for contractors to reconstruct the segments between Marijampolė and Šeštokai and Marijampolė and Kazlų Rūda were issued in February.
Lithuania plans to allocate 1442.885 million litas in EU support funds for the upgrade of the segment between Kazlų Rūda and Kaunas, and another 96.9 million litas for the reconstruction of the segment between Marijampolė and Kazlų Rūda.
As part of the Rail Baltica project, a 7-kilometer European-gauge track section between Šeštokai and Mockava has already been built.
The Rail Baltica European-gauge railway is a strategic Baltic transport project aimed at linking Poland to Finland via three Baltic countries. The total length of the railway in Lithuania is 335 kilometers and the total estimated value is about 1.9 billion litas (EUR 550m), including around 850 million litas for a segment from the Polish border to Kaunas.
Lithuania's railways were built to the Russian gauge of 1,520 millimeters, whereas the European gauge is narrower, 1,435 millimeters.
