By Lynda Myer
In order to advancing the work on another section of Sicily’s new high-capacity railway between Palermo and Catania, a €1.32bn (US$1.41bn) contract has been awarded to Webuild, and its consortium partner Ghella.
Doubling the Fiumetorto-Lercara Junction is done by construction of 30km of new railway in Lot 1+2, and the works include 20km of parallel tunnels, more than 2km of road and rail viaducts, over 7km of roads, as well as three stations. While the Valle del Torto station is due to be new, the other two Cerda and Lercara stations will be upgraded and the number of used TBMs on the contract is slated to be four.
The share of Webuild in this consortium is a 75% stake, including 5% held by its Seli Overseas subsidiary, while Ghella has 25%, including 10% owned by its subsidiary TunnelPro.
As a strategic project for Sicily and Italy, the new Palermo-Catania-Messina axis is a part of the Scandinavian-Mediterranean Corridor of the Trans-European Transport Network (TEN-T). The advantage of this project will be decreasing the travel times between Palermo and Catania by 60 minutes to two hours. While launching the project was up to Rete Ferroviaria Italiana of Gruppo FS Italiane, it was financed by the National Recovery and Resilience Plan.
Lot 1+2 brings to seven the number of lots Webuild, with other Italian companies, has secured on the railway project. They include Lot 1 Fiumefreddo-Taormina/Letojanni (15.4km) and Lot 2 Taormina-Giampilieri (28.4km) between Catania and Messina; and Lot 3 Lercara-Caltanissetta Xirbi (47km), Lot 4A Caltanissetta Xirbi-Nuova Enna (27km); Lot 4B Nuova Enna-Dittaino (15km) and Bicocca-Catenanuova (38km) between Palermo and Catania.
