Antioquia’s ‘Vias del Nus’ Highway Project Gets Financing Boost

Antioquia’s development agency (Instituto para el Desarrollo de Antioquia, IDEA) announced December 13 that it’s extending a COP$132.5 billion (US$44 million) credit for the 157-kilometers-long “Vias del Nus” fourth-generation (4G) highway project in northern Antioquia.

The credit will help support financing, design, environmental studies, purchase of adjacent properties, construction, rehabilitation and operations along the new route, which will pass through the municipalities of Donmatías, Cisneros, San Roque and Maceo.

The new route will connect Medellin and central Antioquia northward to other major highways including “Magdalena 2” and the Northeast Trunk routes, as well as smoothing connections to southern Colombia, according to IDEA.

Project director Ricardo López Lombana added that “this is the first time that an institution such as IDEA – which isn’t a comercial bank – has entered into competition with national and international banks . . . marking an important moment for financing [infrastructure] projects in our country.”

The project – estimated to cost COP$1.5 trillion (US$498 million) and due for completion in 2021– also includes construction of two, 4.1-kilometers-long parallel tunnels through the “Quiebra” mountain pass.

That pass is the principal obstacle linking Medellin to northeast Colombia. The existing “Quiebra” tunnel – far too small for highway vehicles — was built for narrow-gauge railroads that no longer operate commercially.

The first phase of construction involves rehabilitation of 35.6 kilometers of highway between Cisneros and Alto Dolores. Then — over the next four years — 24.3 kilometers of four-lane, divided highway between Pradera and Porcesito will be built.

By 2021, the project will form part of 97.5 kilometers of four-lane divided highway including the section between the Medellin suburbs of Bello and Hatillo, according to Colombia’s national infrastructure agency (see Medellin Herald on March 09, 2017).

The “Vías del Nus” concessionaires include Mincivil S.A. (51.85%), Construcciones El Cóndor S.A. (22.22%), SP Explanaciones S.A.S. (21.10%), EDL S.A.S. (3.72%) and Latinoamericana de Construcciones S.A. (1.11%), according to IDEA.