Anesrif, the Algerian railway agency, has extended the tender closing date for the tunnelling work on the Boughezoul-Djelfa rail line in Algeria.

The original deadline of March 30 has now been extended to 9 April.

The 140km railway line is one of 13 new railway projects funded by AD362bn ($4.58bn), allocated by the Transport Ministry towards the end of last year. A total of $18bn-20bn will be spent expanding and modernising Algeria’s entire rail network by 2015.

In September last year, Germany’s Siemens in a joint venture with the Algerian national railway won the contract to supply signalling and telecommunications systems for the Laghouat-Djelfa line, another one of the planned 13 new lines.