IMPREGILO SPA OF ITALY IS THE lowest bidder for Iceland's state electricity producer Landsvirkjun's solicitation of tenders for the construction of a dam and power station tunnels.
Landsvirkjun said both projects were to supply a new smelter in Iceland for US aluminium group Alcoa Inc.
The hydro power plant being planned will power the 295,000t aluminium smelter for Alcoa, which will be located in Reydarfjordur, eastern Iceland.
A final decision on awarding the contracts will be made by the Icelandic power group sometime in January 2003, depending on whether Alcoa gives the final green light to its plans to build the smelter.
According to Landsvirkjun officials, four European business consortia had placed bids for the dam and tunnel projects but Impregilo had come in lowest, offering to build the dam for approximately US$235M and the tunnels for US$289.6M.
In the run-up to the opening of bids by Landsvirkjun, four companies withdrew from the race - Swedish groups Skanska AB and NCC AB, Norwegian company Veidekke and France's Vinci.
