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Amec is understood to have lost 拢9m on the 拢245m A13 PFI roads job, but will almost certainly recover the 拢7m it spent on winning the 拢167m Colchester Hospital PFI, which the government scrapped at preferred bidder stage.

The A13 is known to have been one of the problem contracts that Amec has undertaken in the past 12 months, although the scale of the scheme鈥檚 troubles was uncertain.

City insiders were dubious that the contractor would be able to recover its bid costs on the Colchester scheme, but a senior health official has hinted that payment was likely.

Amec has declared 拢140m in costs due to exceptional items in the past year. Sir Peter Mason, the outgoing chief executive, was particularly critical of problems on two PFI roads contracts, which are thought to be the A1(M) Darrington鈥揇ishforth and A13 contracts.

The US parent of one of Amec鈥檚 consortium partners, KBR, wrote off $17m (拢9.1m) on a UK road contract in its second quarter results, almost certainly for the A13. It鈥檚 likely that Amec took a similar hit, and a source close to the company confirmed that the amount 鈥渨ould not be too dissimilar鈥�.

Problems on the contract included a fire in the Limehouse tunnel last year.

The Darrington鈥揇ishforth contract is thought to have cost Amec about 拢5m.

Many have questioned Amec鈥檚 refusal to write off 拢7m bid costs for the Colchester Hospital, but the company has argued that the 1997 Bates report recommended that a company in its position be reimbursed.

A senior DoH source admitted that, although there is no precedent for reimbursement in healthcare schemes, there were examples of this at the Ministry of Defence.