A consortium including Russian road contractor DSK Avtoban and Spain’s Sacyr Concessions have reached financial close on the third stage of the 541km Moscow Central Ring Road, one of the largest public-private partnerships ever undertaken in Russia.
The consortium was the only bidder for the scheme, reports InfraPPP World.
The project as a whole is expected to cost $7.2bn, and this phase has a $1.4bn price tag.
It involves the construction, maintenance and repair of the A107 ring road that orbits central Moscow.
The section in question, which will also be known as the A113, runs about 105km between the newly completed M11 Moscow-Saint Petersburg toll motorway in the northwest and the M7 “Volga” motorway in the east, according to World Highways.
Avtodor’s map of the third section
Gazprombank has agreed to lend $600m to the project consortium and DSK Avtoban will itself provide $100m in equity funding. The balance will be supplied by Russian road agency Avtodor.
The highway, which will be tolled, will have eight lanes of traffic at its widest. There will be 55 bridges and flyovers and four multilevel crossings. The traffic volume expected for 2030 is 43,500 cars a day.
The tender was first let in 2014 by Avtodor and attracted five bids. However, the economic uncertainty caused by the fall in oil prices, tensions over Ukraine and Crimea, sanctions, and the weakness of the rouble together persuaded non-Russian firms to withdraw, and the scheme was retendered with one bidder.
The road ministry animation showing the scale of the project can be seen here.
Top image: A section of the road under construction, courtesy of Finland’s Lemminkäinen Group, who are working an earlier phase
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