Work expected 1 century promises to reduce crossing to 5 minutes and is strategic for the port of Santos
The Government of São Paulo and the Union hold this Friday (5.Set.2025) the auction to choose the company responsible for the construction and operation of the submerged tunnel that will connect Santos to Guarujá. The event will be at 16h, at the headquarters of (scholarship of São Paulo), in São Paulo.
The dispute was between 2 foreign groups: Spanish, responsible for the 6-orange line of the São Paulo subway, and the Portuguese, which has a shareholding of Chinese and has been expanding its performance in Brazil in works of mobility and oil and gas.
The contract will last 30 years in the PPP (Public-Private Partnership) model.
How will the tunnel be
The submerged part of the tunnel will be built with precast concrete blocks installed at the bottom of the Porto de Santos estuary channel. This technique already applied in Europe and Asia, but unpublished in Brazil.
The structure will have:
- 3 bearing lanes in each direction, one of them exclusive to the VLT (light vehicle on rails);
- pedestrian bike path and catwalk;
- Service Gallery.
1st century waiting
The project has been awaited for almost 100 years. Currently, the mobility between Santos and Guarujá depends on the ferry system (average 18 minutes), or the route on the Domênico Rangoni Cônego Highway (up to 1 hour). With the tunnel, the crossing will be made in about 5 minutes.
The tunnel is also considered strategic for the logistics of the port of Santos, the largest in Latin America, by reducing transportation costs and expanding the competitiveness of Brazilian foreign trade.
9,000 direct and indirect jobs are expected to be generated during the execution of the work.
Suspension attempt
On Wednesday (3.Set), the (Public Prosecution Service with the TCU) asked, claiming that the financing model favored foreign groups and made it impossible to participate in Brazilian companies.
According to sub -prosecutor Lucas Rocha Furtado, national builders such as Odebrecht and Andrade Gutierrez expressed initial interest in the project, but gave up because of the requirements of guarantees established by the (National Bank for Economic and Social Development)
The process was distributed to the minister, who on Thursday (4.set).
According to the minister, the representation was based only on a journalistic report and did not have evidence of irregularities.
Dantas stated that the bank is not required to fund all interested companies and determined that the technical area follow future financing to the auction winner.
