News Releases
Balfour Beatty Awarded £100 Million AlpTransit Tunnel Project By SBB-Swiss Railways
06 Jun 2000Balfour Beatty, the international engineering, construction and services group, announces today that it has been awarded, in joint venture, the SFr250 million (approximately £100 million) project to construct the Lötschberg base tunnels as part of the AlpTransit project by SBB-Swiss Railways.
Balfour Beatty is already working on the SFr250 million Steg contract, part of the same project, which was awarded in November 1999.
Commenting today, Balfour Beatty Chief Executive, Mike Welton, said:
“This further success in Switzerland demonstrates the strength of our specialist expertise in tunnelling and our proven capabilities in complex project management and execution on an international basis.”
The 35km long Lötschberg project forms part of the Bern-Lötschberg-Simplon, AlpTransit railway axis for BLS AlpTransit AG, a subsidiary of Schweizerische Bundesbahnen (SBB-Swiss Railways).
The large diameter tunnels will form a key route for freight between the EU countries. The scope of the works for the Raron contract, located to the south and adjacent to the joint venture’s Steg contract, comprises two running tunnels from Raron towards Ferden, a crossover and cross passages. The total length to be tunnelled is 10.8km with 1.0km optional extensions for each tunnel. The 9.5m diameter tunnels will be driven mostly by hard rock TBM (tunnel boring machine) with the remainder by drill and blast.
Balfour Beatty’s partners in the project are Marti Holding AG, Walter Gruppe and Porr PG.
ENDS
Enquiries to:-
Tim Sharp
Balfour Beatty plc
Tel: +44 (0)20 7629 6622
