RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – The ‘Consórcio Infraestrutura Brasil’ (“Brazil Infrastructure Consortium”), comprising ‘Pátria’ and GIC (Singapore Sovereign Fund), has won the auction for the Piracicaba-Panorama road section (named PiPa), held on Wednesday, January 8th, at the B3 Stock Exchange. The consortium placed a bid of R$1.1 billion (US$275 million) for the lot.
According to the Transportation Agency of the State of São Paulo (ARTESP), the amount of R$15 million had been established as the minimum acceptable bid.
Heavyweight concessionaires did not participate in the auction. CCR and Arteris, which currently operate part of the stretch to be auctioned, failed to deliver envelopes with a proposal. Ecorodovias presented a bid of R$527.05 million.
In total, the concession is expected to invest approximately R$14 billion over 30 years for the stretch between the city of Piracicaba, in the region of Campinas, and the municipality of Panorama, in the far west of the state, bordering Mato Grosso do Sul.
Launched mid-2019, the bid included 218 kilometers currently operated by Arteris Group’s Centrovias concessionaire, whose contract expires in the first quarter this year, in addition to 1,055 kilometers operated by the DER-SP.
The project is the largest highway concession in the country. According to data from the National Land Transportation Agency (ANTT), the average length of highways under concession in Brazil is 482.6 km, compared to 1,273 km from the PiPa lot.
Toll
A new tariff model has also been proposed, which provides a five percent discount for users of the electronic toll collection (drive through) service, as well as a lower rate for frequent road users. According to the government, this latter rate should mainly benefit residents of small towns near the toll plazas who use the roads to access trade and services in neighboring municipalities.
The tolls set out in the contract are based on the rates of R$14.91 per 100 kilometers on divided highways and R$10.65 per 100 kilometers on two-way roads.