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Hills Motorway has revealed its expansion ambitions by taking part in one
of the four consortia bidding for the $815 million Lane Cove Tunnel.
A decision on who will build the tunnel will come after the winning
consortium for the western Sydney orbital toll road project is decided.
The Roads and Transport Authority (RTA) is to settle on the winning
consortium for this $1.2 billion project by the middle of the month.
A consortium of Deutsche Bank and Cheung Kong Infrastructure is the
favourite to win the orbital toll road contract.
The Lane Cove tunnel will join the Gore Hill Freeway with the M2 motorway,
which is operated by Hills.
The project involves tunnelling 3.4 kilometres under Epping Road.
Hills Motorway is joining Macquarie Bank, Abigroup and Obayashi Corp in the
TunnelLink consortium in bidding for the project.
Other consortia are:
* Lane Cove Expressway: comprised of Bilfinger Berger, Commonwealth Bank and
Transurban;
* Lane Cove Tunnel Consortium: Thiess, Transfield and ABN Amro;
and
* Lane Cove Motorway: Leighton and Deutsche Bank.
Final bids for the Lane Cove project are to be lodged with the RTA by
November 27, although at this stage it is not clear how long their evaluation
will take. A decision is likely ahead of the March state elections.
Also on Hills's agenda is a bid for the F3 extension project, although the
status of this is unclear, since it is likely to involve federal funding.
This project involves connecting the M2 with the F3 near Hornsby. Any
development is likely to be several years away.
Hills disclosed its expansion plans when outlining changes to introduce a
holding company into its structure. Under the present structure, Hills is
limited to operating the M2 motorway.
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