Two consortiums, 262 million euros apart, want to build Portugal's next high-speed rail section
The Oiã-Soure concession drew no valid bids at all in 2024 and was relaunched in January. This time it drew two: 2,038 million euros from Sacyr with DST and Alberto Couto Alves, 2,300 million from the Mota-Engil grouping. Price carries 80 per cent of the award decision.
In July 2024 the state rail body Infraestruturas de Portugal put the Oiã to Soure section of the Porto-Lisbon high-speed line out to tender and received not a single valid bid. The process was scrapped. In January, after the government told IP to rework it, the tender was relaunched on redrawn terms. Two bids came in.
They are 262 million euros apart. The consortium led by Spain’s Sacyr, alongside Portuguese contractors DST and Alberto Couto Alves, bid 2,038 million. The Lusolav grouping, headed by Mota-Engil with Teixeira Duarte, Alves Ribeiro, Casais, Conduril and Gabriel Couto, bid 2,300 million. Price accounts for 80 per cent of the award decision, which leaves the remaining criteria very little room to reverse that order.
IP’s tender documentation sets a maximum authorised contract value of 1,603 million euros, expressed as net present value referenced to December 2023. That is a different basis of calculation from the bid prices, so subtracting one from the other does not mean what it looks like it means.
What the section actually covers
Roughly 61 kilometres of new line between Oiã and Soure, with connections onto the existing Linha do Norte near Oiã, Adémia and Taveiro. Coimbra B station gets adapted for high-speed services, and the Linha do Norte is widened to four tracks between Taveiro and Coimbra B. About 25 kilometres of the route sits on bridges and viaducts.
The concession runs 30 years, with development and construction estimated at five and a half of them. Work is due to begin in 2027.
This is section two
Section one, Porto to Oiã, was signed in July 2025 with the Avan Norte consortium. The link down to Lisbon comes after.
The trains are a separate procurement, and Alstom has already committed to a maintenance plant in Matosinhos for whatever rolling stock it wins. Track, trains and operation are three distinct decisions, and as the competition authority’s review of the Cascais line subconcessions showed, Portuguese rail rarely takes them at the same speed.
By Beatriz Mota
Photo: 69joehawkins / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)
