GATEwest, the consortium bringing together ABN AMRO, Strukton, Ballast Nedam, GTI and Van Oord, is one of the three parties selected to participate in the consultation phase of the tender for the Capacity Development Coentunnel project. This was the result of the evaluation of the Plans of Approach presented by 5 consortia on 20 April 2006.

The project will be a DBFM contract, in which the design, build, financing and maintenance of the Coentunnel complex will be contracted as an integral package to a private consortium for a period of 30 years. Besides the building of a new tunnel next to the existing tunnel, the contract also includes re-routing of the existing approach roads and crossings, as well as the maintenance of the complete tunnel system, roads and traffic management systems. According to the current planning, the tender will lead to the selection of a preferred bidder in February 2007, with contract close around April 2007.

The tender for the Capacity Development Coentunnel is innovative, in that it uses a so-called competitive dialogue process, allowing the authority more flexibility in the tender process. Within this process the Pre-Qualification phase and the Plan of Approach phase are now finalized. In the current Consultation phase, each of the 3 selected parties are being consulted in order to optimize the bid documents.

GATEwest combines the knowledge and experience of several parties. Besides the shareholders ABN AMRO, Strukton, Ballast Nedam, GTI and Van Oord, each employing their own financial, legal and technical expertise, the consortium has also secured itself the support of a number of external specialists.