Follo Line contract awarded

The contract has a value of NOK 8.7bn (USD 1.08bn) and is scheduled to be signed before Easter and the work will commence immediately thereafter. The award value is within the project budget. The JV won based on an overall assessment of price and technical feasibility and performance.

The contract covers both conventional drilling and TBM work, in addition to railway system installations and comprises construction work to be performed without proximity to railway operations. This is the second of four large EPC contracts for the Follo Line Project, currently the largest infrastructure project in Norway.

This contract includes the blasting of large assembly halls located approximately 1 km inside the mountain. Access tunnels to this area are currently under construction under a separate preparatory contract. In the assembly halls, the four tunnel boring machines will be assembled from prefabricated parts prior to operation. The tunnel boring machines will have a diameter of less than ten meters. Two separate tunnels of 19 kilometers each, will be excavated by TBM between Oslo and the new Ski station. Two machines will drill north towards Oslo and two machines will drill southward toward Ski. The northern part of the tunnel will be operated partly by conventional methods and partly by drill & split. This work is part of another contract.

The Joint Venture will also perform all the railway installations, with the exception of the signal system. All mechanical and electrical equipment in the tunnel will be installed in approximately half of the 44 cross connections to be built between the two tunnels. The cross connections will be used for evacuation between the tunnels.

The Follo Line will comprise 20km of twin tube tunnel excavated by TBMs just under 10m in diameter.