A $37.4 million contract has gone to infrastructure company Exact Contracting to seal 22.5 kilometres of Santa Teresa Road, the main link between the Santa Teresa community and Alice Springs. The job delivers an eight-metre-wide sealed rural arterial from roughly the 40-kilometre mark through to about 62 kilometres along the road, with work starting in October 2026 and finishing by early 2028.
The award was reported by Roads & Infrastructure, which said the scope also covers associated civil works, site establishment, and traffic management planning and implementation.
A freight route that washes out
Santa Teresa Road isn’t a scenic back road. It services a number of pastoral leases and acts as the main access route for several freight companies running southeast of Alice Springs. It’s also historically prone to flooding and corrugation, the two things that turn a gravel arterial into a closed road or a truck-killer inside a season.
That’s the problem the seal is meant to fix. The upgrade is pitched at improving safety for all road users, cutting travel times, and giving the corridor a more reliable surface year round.
Federal Member for Lingiari Marion Scrymgour said the benefit lands well beyond the freight task.
“Having a safer and more reliable road into Alice Springs means better access to healthcare, education, shops, and essential services for the residents of Santa Teresa,” Ms Scrymgour said.
“Sealing another 22.5 kilometres of the Santa Teresa Road is a big step forward. People in remote communities deserve roads they can rely on.”
What the work actually looks like
This isn’t an overlay job on an existing seal. Taking 22.5 kilometres of corrugated formation up to an eight-metre sealed arterial means building the road, not resurfacing it: survey and set-out, site establishment and camp, clearing and grubbing the corridor, then earthworks to reshape the formation and get the crossfall right so water sheds instead of ponding.
Drainage is the part that decides whether the money holds. On a route the Territory describes as flood-prone, culvert and floodway work carries as much weight as the pavement above it. Get it wrong and you’re back on the same 22.5 kilometres in five years.
After that comes pavement construction, gravel won, carted, spread, watered and compacted in layers, then prime and seal, line marking and furniture. Traffic management runs across the whole lot, because the road stays live for pastoral and freight traffic while the crews work it.
On the contract numbers, $37.4 million across 22.5 kilometres works out at roughly $1.66 million per sealed kilometre. That’s the remote-works premium in plain sight: plant floated in, crews housed on site, water and gravel sourced locally or carted, and a program that has to be built around a corridor nobody can close.
The order book behind it
The head contract is one name, but a 15-month remote civil program is where subcontract and hire work sits: plant and float operators, water carting, survey, traffic control, fencing, and the local supply that feeds a job this far from a depot. The announcement doesn’t break out those packages, so anyone chasing a slice of it will be watching Exact Contracting’s own procurement rather than a government tender list.
The timing matters too. An October 2026 start means the crewing decisions, the second float, the extra operator, get made through 2026, not at the announcement.
Part of a $415m Territory package
The project sits inside the Northern Territory Strategic Roads Package, worth $415 million and jointly funded by $322 million from the Federal Government and $83 million from the Northern Territory Government.
This stretch builds on earlier work under the same package, which sealed seven kilometres of Santa Teresa Road between the 13-kilometre and 20-kilometre sections. Add the new 22.5 kilometres and the sealed run out of Alice Springs stretches considerably further toward the community, though the road won’t be fully sealed end to end at the close of these works.
The funding split is the standard federal-heavy arrangement for remote Territory roads, with the Commonwealth carrying close to four dollars in five through the Department of Infrastructure.
What to watch
Two things. First, whether the October 2026 start holds, because a remote job that slips its mobilisation window ends up fighting weather it was scheduled to avoid. Second, what comes after the 62-kilometre mark, because the package has now funded two separate chunks of this one road and the unsealed gaps in between are still doing the same damage to the same trucks.
For civil crews already working Central Australia, this is a 15-month program on the books from spring 2026. For everyone else, it’s a marker of where the Territory’s remote roads money is landing next.
Frequently asked questions
How much is the Santa Teresa Road contract worth?
$37.4 million, awarded to Exact Contracting to seal 22.5 kilometres of Santa Teresa Road southeast of Alice Springs.
When does work start and finish?
Work starts in October 2026 and is due for completion by early 2028, a roughly 15-month program.
Will the whole of Santa Teresa Road be sealed after this?
No. This stage seals from about the 40-kilometre mark to 62 kilometres. An earlier stage under the same package sealed 7 kilometres between the 13km and 20km marks, and unsealed gaps remain in between.
Who is funding the project?
It sits within the $415 million Northern Territory Strategic Roads Package, with $322 million from the Federal Government and $83 million from the NT Government.
Sourced from Roads & Infrastructure, Northern Territory Government. Original article.
