A consortium comprising construction giants Vinci and BAM International has been chosen to build a new undersea tunnel linking Denmark to Germany.
The €8.7bn Fehmarnbelt Tunnel will stretch for 18km, linking Denmark to northern Germany. It will carry a four-lane motorway and a double-track electrified railway, aiming to open by 2024.
The consortium, Femern Link Contractors was named as preferred bidder last week for both the main tunnel and for a separate major contract covering the portals and ramps.
The project’s design consortium is an Ramboll-Arup-TEC (RAT) joint venture.
Another consortium, Fehmarn Belt Contractors, which includes Boskalis and Hochtief, won the dredging and reclamation contract.
The project will be partially funded by the European Union and is aimed at speeding up and easing the general transport of goods and people between Germany and Scandinavia. It is expected to cut the drive time between the two countries to just 10 minutes.
The tunnel will cut the drive time between Germany and Denmark to 10 minutes
According to a spokesperson for RAT, the Danes originally favoured a cable-stayed bridge solution. However, as a precautionary measure, a study considering a tunnel solution was commissioned alongside that for a bridge.
Designing a cost-saving longitudinal ventilation system meant that there was no need to build an artificial island to ventilate the tunnel, making this solution cheaper than the cable-stayed bridge. The tunnel option was therefore adopted in 2011.
The tender process began in late 2013 using the principle of “competitive dialogue” when the shortlisted construction consortia were challenged to introduce innovative and competitive ideas.
Nine major international consortia prequalified to submit tenders. Bids were evaluated with a 50% technical and 50% price weighting.
The contract with Femern Link will be conditional on the German government granting permits for the project, at which point construction of the immersed tube tunnel between Rødbyhavn on Lolland and Puttgarden on the German island of Fehmarn would begin.
Femern Link Contractors consists of Vinci Construction Grands Projets of France, Per Aarsleff A/S (Denmark); Wayss & Freytag (Germany); Max Bögl (Germany); CFE (Belgium); Soletanche-Bachy International (France); BAM Infra (Netherlands); and BAM International (Netherlands).
