Three international consortiums submitted bids on Tuesday to design and build the new sets of locks for the ongoing $5.2-billion expansion of the Panama Canal.

巴拿马运河管理局的官员——曲asi-governmental organization that oversees the waterway’s administration often known by its Spanish-language acronym, ACP – accepted bids in a ceremony in Panama.

The canal authority has previously projected the lock component of the project to cost $3.35 billion but the actual price tag for the effort was unclear due to the scale of the effort and the confidentiality measures put in place for the evaluation of the three proposals.

包括提交投标的三个财团；Consorcio C.A.N.A.L.由ACS Servicios，Comunicaciones YEnergía，S.L。领导西班牙由西班牙公司Sacyr Vallehermoso S.A.领导的美国Bechtel Interacional，Inc。和Grupo Unidos Por El Canal领导的Mitsubishi Corp。

A fourth consortium, Consorcio Atlántico-Pacífico de Panamá led by Bouygues Travaux Publics of France, was approved to participate in the lock building process but did not submit a bid, authority officials said.

ACP管理员/首席执行官AlbertoAlemánZubieta说：“我们很高兴我们最终得到了四个财团中的三个提交出价。”“我们尊重第四决定最终不向我们提交正式建议的业务决定。”

阿尔曼（Aleman）不会猜测ConsorcioAtlántico-PacíficficoficoficodeficodedePanamá选择不参加，但确实说所有四个财团都担心2007年12月发表的最初RFP的特定方面，即运河管理局努力解决。

The third-lane expansion was overwhelmingly approved by Panamanian voters in 2006 and work on the project formally started in Sept. 2007. Upon completion in 2014, the expansion will more than double the capacity of the historic waterway due to increase traffic as well as permitting the passage of newer post-Panamax vessels to large to use the existing the existing locks.

ACP通过运河的收益为大规模的基础设施努力提供资金，估计今年将稳定在20亿美元中，并从去年批准的一组国际贷款人那里获得了23亿美元的贷款。

The request for proposal for the locks was initially released in December 2007 with a deadline for bid submissions in August of last year. The ACP pushed back the deadline twice, extending the bidding process a full six months.

Alemán said the delay was due to requests by the participating consortia for more time to complete their proposals but said the overall timeline of the expansion has not be affected

“Any adjustment they [the consortia] brought to the table required an adjustment in the conditions of the contract,” he said. “When we made those amendments to the RFP they asked for more time in lieu of the changes.”

The initial estimates by the ACP projected the locks themselves would cost approximately $2.73 billion. The gravity-operated, single-lane, three-step locks at the Atlantic and Pacific entrances will boast lock chambers 427 meters long by 55 m wide and 18.3 m deep with sufficient draft for the 366-m-long post-Panamax ships. Instead of the current configuration of miter gates, the new locks will use rolling gates similar to those at the Berendredt canal in Anbres, Belgium.

The new Pacific locks will be situated on the southwest side of the existing Miraflores Locks. The new Atlantic locks will be east of the present Gatun Locks.

The contract also includes the construction of a series of water-saving basins approximately 70 m wide by 5.50 m deep the ACP initially estimated to cost $620 million. A basin will be built for each individual lock, allowing the water to be reused rather than flushed out to sea. Although the sheer size of the new lock chambers will require 65% more water than the existing locks, they will use 7% less water per transit.

Due to the scale of the design build proposals for the locks, the canal authority has divided the selection process into price and technical portion. The price proposals submitted on Tuesday will be set aside while the technical aspects of the submitted bids are evaluated.

Chairman of the ACP Board, Dani Kuzniecky described the evaluation process as “airtight” but stressed the canal authority was also determined to provide as much information as possible about the proceedings.

“The Canal management is firmly committed to an open, fair, rigorous and transparent bid process,” he said on Tuesday.

The three price proposals and the ACP’s owner’s price were placed in sealed envelopes signed by the Notary Public, the ACP Contracting Officer and the Canal’s Inspector General and deposited in the vault of Panama’s National Bank for safekeeping.

这三个建议的技术方面将由一个由15个ACP雇员组成的评估委员会审查，该委员会受到保密和利益冲突协议的约束。委员会将由商业咨询公司德勤（Deloitte）协助和监视，上个月被选为该项目锁定部分的签约审计师。

The winning bid will be chosen following a public forum where the prices and the evaluation of the technical aspects of the three proposals are presented. While the date has not been set, Alemán said Tuesday the ACP is hoping to have the selection made by summer.

他周二说：“评估委员会的手中有很多文件将开始工作。”“我们认为，希望到六月，我们应该能够由该董事会做出决定。”