By Lynda Myer
In the middle of January 2022, work has started on Lot H41 Gola del Sill-Pfons of the Brenner Base Tunnel. In previous November the €651 million contract was handed to Webuild, which is a member of the joint-venture. It will create 400 direct jobs. This new large project is in Austria, one of the countries that enter the commercial strategy that the Group has been pursuing for a number of years, focusing on low-risk markets that are rolling out infrastructure development plans.
Cooperating with its Swiss subsidiary CSC Costruzioni, Webuild are taking part in the project with a 50% stake in the joint-venture that is due to handling the construction, while the remained 50% is Implenia’s share. By the aim of extending the railway tunnel between Italy and Austria beneath the Alps, the Brenner Base Tunnel, the client BBT SE, which is a European public limited company has been established.
With 64km length this tunnel is going to become the longest railway tunnel in the world, whereas Webuild is already working on the construction of other lots of this project such as the Isarco River Underpass and Mules 2-3 after having completed Lot Tulfes-Pfons. The railway between Fortezza and Ponte Gardena south of the tunnel is also the other project of Webuild at the moment.
The new Lot H41 anticipates a part of the Brenner Base Tunnel in Austria and includes the construction of the railway from Gola del Sill near the city of Innsbruck in the north to the town of Pfons placed further south. Total of 22.5 km of main tunnel tubes, 38 cross passages with a total length of about 2.3 km, in addition to the lining of the walls of already completed tunnels, an underground emergency stop at Innsbruck, access tunnels, exploratory tunnels, and parts of other secondary tunnels, are the contents of this contract.
In order to use the mechanized method of digging, two tunnel-boring machines with a diameter of more than 10 meters will be recruited. The design of the project focuses on the environmental sustainability of the project during construction: the logistics of the worksites are designed to reduce travel times for the transport of materials, and measures to reduce dust and noise are foreseen.
The reasons for invaluability of Brenner Base Tunnel for Europe, are that it will be a key part of the Scandinavian-Mediterranean Corridor of the Trans-European Transport Network (TEN-T) as well as will link Helsinki in Finland and La Valletta in Malta. Additionally, its role in connecting Italy and Austria with a high-speed/high-capacity railway is not negligible.
