Panama will take bids from four international consortiums seeking to build new, larger ship locks for the Panama Canal, government officials said on Friday.
The locks are a key part of the US$5.25 billion canal expansion project that began in September, aimed at doubling the capacity of the 80km canal connecting the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans.
Panamanian officials hope the project will be finished by 2014.
The four consortiums have until next August to present final proposals and price tags to compete for the contract, said Alberto Aleman, head of the Panama Canal Authority.
The bidders are:
* The CANAL consortium, which includes the Spanish companies ACS Servicios, Acciona Infraestructuras and Sner Engineering of Spain, as well as the Germany-based Hochtief Construction, ICA of Mexico and Royal Haskoning of the Netherlands.
* Atlantic-Pacific of Panama, which includes Bouygues Construction, VINCI Construction and Alstom of France, Bilfinger Berger of Germany, the US-based AECOM and four Brazilian firms.
* A consortium that includes the US-based Bechtel, and Taisei and Mitsubishi of Japan.
* The "United Group for the Canal," which includes Panama's Constructora Urbana, US-based companies Tetra Tech, Montgomery Watson Harza and Heerema Group, and companies from the Netherlands, Italy, Spain and Belgium.
The canal was built between 1904 and 1914 by the US, which handed control over to Panama in December 1999.
The largest ships that now use the canal carry up to 5,000 containers, but after the expansion supertankers and ships carrying as many as 12,000 containers will be able to sail the canal.
Some 14,000 ships, comprising about 5 percent of annual world commerce, pass through the Central American shortcut to avoid going around Cape Horn.
Panama's government says the work would be financed by a hike in tolls, worth US$1.2 billion.
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