Astaldi in €776 million Romanian joint venture

An Astaldi-led consortium has been awarded two new contracts worth €776 million, to carry out work on the Frontieră-Curtici-Simeria railway line in Romania – part of the Pan-European Corridor IV, a transport corridor that runs from Dresden and Nuremberg in Germany to Thessaloniki in Greece, Constanta in Romania and Istanbul in Turkey.

The contract includes lots 2A and 2B, where rehabilitation and stabilisation work will need to be carried out on 80km of railway and 11 stations, along with the European Railway Traffic Management System (ERTMS). A tunnel and 80 bridges will also require building.

Since the two lots are adjacent to one another, Astaldi said there are significant operational synergies and economies of scale to be gained, which will guarantee the optimum performance of the works.

The customer is state-owned Căile Ferate Române (CFR) – Romania’s national railway company – and the works are 75% financed by European funds, with the remaining 25% provided by the state budget. Astaldi’s share in the joint venture is 42%, FCC Construcción hold an equal stake, SC Thales Systems Romania have a 15% share, and Salcef Costruzioni Edili e Ferroviarie have a 1% share.

Work is scheduled to start by the end of the first half of this year and estimated to last for 36 months.

The Astaldi Group has been operating in Romania for more than 20 years, and in that time it has built more than 100km of railways and undergrounds, 250km of roads and motorways and two international airports – Henri Coanda in Bucharest and Avram Iancu in Cluj-Napoca – among other projects.