Rutas del Loa Roadway Concession

Ferrovial Construction Chile is designing and building the Rutas del Loa Roadway Concession contract in the provinces of Antofagasta and El Loa, passing through the municipalities of Sierra Gorda and Calama.

The contract is mandated by Chile’s Ministry of Public Works; the Concessionaire is Ruta del Loa Sociedad Concesionaria S.A., whose shareholders are Intervial Chile S.A. and ISA Inversiones Tolten Ltda. The project budget is as high as €250 million.

The project is divided into two sections:

• Section A: 112 km on the current Route 25 between Calama and Carmen Alto. It is comprised of construction of a new roadway and renovation of the existing roadway, and it includes a toll plaza.
• Section B: 25 km of a new divided highway as a bypass to the east of Calama. This section is not under concession and includes a singular bridge, the Yalquincha Viaduct, measuring 318m

In a remote location more than 1500 km north of the capital, Santiago de Chile, the site is surrounded by the most arid area in the world, the Atacama Desert. As an area predominantly used for mining, the competition for obtaining human and material resources is very high. This, along with the social upheaval  in Chile in 2019 and the subsequent Covid-19 pandemic, has meant the work has been carried out in extreme conditions of resource scarcity, a situation that’s been aggravated by the hyper-inflation of materials since January 2021.

Despite the aforementioned circumstances, thanks to the excellent team of people that are part of the project and the synergy with the different Ferrovial departments involved, Technical Directorate, Contract Management, Machinery Inventory, Tecpresa, and Digital Construction, Innovation, and Operational Efficiency, the project is being carried out satisfactorily. We are confident that we will continue to meet the contractual milestones in progress and complete the work in October 2023 (Section A) and January 2025 (Section B), thus assisting the development of the Antofagasta region and increasing safety levels for users by reducing the accident rate.

Following the guidelines of the Abacus Project – Ferrovial Construction’s strategic plan launched in 2020 – the Rutas del Loa team is deeply committed to achieving the objectives set for Safety, Health and Well-Being, People, and Technology and Innovation

With more than 400 people on the Ferrovial team for the project, there have been peaks of up to 1000 people, including subcontractors.