Report: Turkish partner withdraws from Koper-Divača rail track
Ljubljana, 7 February - One of the two Turkish partners building a 27km rail track between Divača and Koper in consortium with the Slovenian company Kolektor CPG has withdrawn from the project, news portal Necenzurirano reported on Friday. A new annex is expected to be signed, raising the price of the EUR 1.1 billion project by some EUR 20 million.
Kozina
An event marking the bore-through of all tunnels on the future Koper-Divača railway.
Photo: Bor Slana/STA
File photo
The Turkish company Yapi Merkezi reportedly informed 2TDK, the state-owned company managing the project, that it will not be able to finish its part of the project. Kolektor is to take over most of the work, while Turkish workers should conduct minor operative works on the section between Divača and Črni Kal, Necenzurirano reported.
Yapi Merkezi has been struggling financially for almost a year. In September 2024, some of its subcontractors and workers did not receive pay, so they left the construction site. According to Necenzurirano's unofficial information, the company owes almost EUR 20 million to its subcontractors.
The supervisors of 2TDK held a meeting on Thursday at which they approved the annex, reportedly involving some EUR 20 million in additional costs due to price hikes. Kolektor had been striving for it for more than six months, writes the portal.
The construction works between Črni Kal and Koper or Divača to be finished in 2026 will thus cost some EUR 650 million, which is over EUR 22 million more than what was planned in the contract that the consortium signed with 2TDK in May 2021. This means the final price tag of the project, which was estimated at EUR 1.1 billion, will go up by just as much.
The third phase of the project, worth EUR 204 million, includes the construction of tracks and track installations, the rolling stock network, telecommunications equipment, the video and safety systems, the installation of hardware, electrical equipment and power supply.
The work is being carried out by a consortium led by the construction section of the Slovenian Railways and including Kolektor IGIN and YM Construction or Yapi Merkezi Construction. According to the portal, the Turkish company allegedly withdrew from this segment too.
In mid-January, 2TDK confirmed that it was aware of the financial difficulties of Yapi Merkezi, but said that it received assurances from the company, the Turkish minister of transport as well as the leading bank of the syndicate of banks in Turkey that the financial issues were being resolved. A debt restructuring agreement was also said to have been signed with the banks in Turkey.