Bulgarian consortium Trace Highways has pitched the lowest bid to build the section of Trakiya highway connecting Stara Zagora and Nova Zagora and is therefore the likeliest winner of the tender.

The tie-in is led by road construction company Trace Group Hold. It comprises also its subsidiary PSI, SK 13 Holding, Viastroy Engineering and Road Construction – Dobrich. The price proposed by the consortium, which is almost thrice lower than the highest bid, took everyone by surprised upon unsealing of the offers.

"I’m quite impressed by the differences in price offers, or I should say I’m even worried," construction minister Rossen Plevneliev said, adding that the difference was "gigantic". "The bid will be closely examined to check whether it is sustainable. If we could build the section for such a low price that would be great," he said.

The price proposed by Trace Highways is more than 30% lower than the median price in the offers submitted by the other three candidates and so the company will be requested to provide an additional analysis, said Dimitar Margaritov, who chairs the tender committee. He expects the committee should come up with a decision within three weeks.

Trace has offered to develop the project at a price of EUR 2.2 million oer kilometer. In 2004, it pocketed EUR 2.4 million/km to link up Orizovo and Stara Zagora.