Webuild renews its expansion in Romania with the winning of a €441-million contract to upgrade and double a section known as Lot 4 of the Caransebes-Timişoara-Arad railway, part of a wider project to expand the Rhine-Danube Corridor of the Trans-European Transport Network (TEN-T).
The contract comes shortly after the Group was awarded Lot 3 worth €291 million, another section on the same railway, one of the most important in the country. As a result, Webuild reaches €2 billion worth of new contracts and others in the phase of being finalised in the country so far this year. The contracts are for the most part financed with European Union funds.
Webuild is leading the consortium that won the contract for Lot 4 with a 72.2% stake. Its partner Salcef holds the other 27.3%. Work on the section is expected to create 1,300 jobs, direct and indirect. Combined with Lot 3 contract, the total number of jobs reaches 1,900.
Commissioned by Compania Naţională de Căi Ferate CFR SA, Romania’s national railway company, on behalf of the Ministry of Transport and Infrastructure, the contract involves the design and execution of the modernization of approximately 55 kilometres of the railway between Ronat and Arad Nou in western Romania. It also includes the construction of a bridge 635 metres long with a central span of 180 metres over the Mures River, as well as a series of 11 other bridges, four highway overpasses and six stations.
Financed by the Operational Programme for Large Infrastructure (POIM) for Romania, the entire project will help increase train speed and capacity along the Caransebes-Timişoara-Arad railway between Bucharest and Timişoara. Passenger trains will travel at speeds of up to 160 kilometres per hour, while those for cargo up to 120 kilometres per hour.
Lot 4 is the latest in a series of contracts recently obtained by Webuild in Romania, including a railway section between Cluj-Napoca and Episcopia Bihor; Lots 3 and 5 of the Sibiu-Pitesti highway, the first to cross the Carpathian Mountains; the upgrading of 120 kilometres of railway between Frontieră, Curtici and Simeria, a project split into three lots that involves the construction of bridges, viaducts and the renovation of stations. Another project is the construction of the Braila Bridge over the Danube River. At 1,975 metres with a central span of 1,120 metres, it will be the second longest suspension bridge in continental Europe.