Sistema Gals has won the tender to design the Orlovsky toll tunnel under the river Neva in St. Petersburg. The contract has a value of RUR57.2 million. The project includes two tunnels, each 1.6 km long, between Orlovskaya Ulitsa and Piskaryov Prospekt. A 24-hour traffic connection across the Neva will aim to ease traffic congestion around the centre and to allow more time to open the bridges for navigation. The cost of the project is estimated between RUR9.7 and RUR11.2 billion. Tenders for construction are awaited in 2006. Read E-News Weekly 15/2005. 48/05.Open call for bids with prequalification, deadline 30th November, 2007 for the design, construction, financing and operation of the approx. 940 m-long Orlovski road tunnel under the Neva river, Smolnaya and Sverdlovskaya embankments in St. Petersburg. The tunnel starts on the left bank in the central part of the city near Orlovskaya Street, crosses the Neva between Liteiny and Bolsheohtinsky bridges and exits between Piskarevsky Avenue and Shosse Revolutsii. The concession term for this PPP project will be 30 years starting from the concession agreement signature date. The successful bidder is expected to be announced on 9th June, 2008. Project advisors are Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer, the World Bank, Mott MacDonald and the Research and Design Institute of Regional Development and Transportation. Contact person for acceptance and keeping records of the incoming mail and for dispatch of replies and notices: Yulia Evgenjevna Dulskaya, senior specialist expert at the Ministry of Transport of the Russian Federation, tel. +7 495 6269944, e-mail milovaaa@mintrans.ru. Contact persons at ZSD JSC to perform management and technical functions on behalf of the bid evaluation committee: Igor Alexandrovich Lukjanov and Evgenia Vitaljevna Khoroshavia, tel. +7 812 3803850, fax +7 812 3803851, e-mail office@wsd.spb.ru. Visit www.orlovtunnel.ru for more or e-mail office@orlovtunnel.ru. Read E-News Weekly 20/2007, 15/2005, 13/2004 & 32/2003. 39/07.

Revised schedule for bid procedure for 940 m-long Orlovski road tunnel beneath Neva river published at www.orlovtunnel.ru announces new bid deadline of 03.06.2009 with selection of successful bidder by 03.07.2009. Further details from office@orlovtunnel.com. For full background to this much delayed DBOT project visit tunnelbuilder archive ru/23 and see bid evaluation details at www.gov.spb.ru. 18/09.