NEWS |
Action group seeks halt to dredging operations for Fehmarnbelt Tunnel
Breakthrough marks completion of Singapore Circle Line 6 SINGAPORE – Tunnelling works on Circle Line 6 have been completed following the breakthrough of a TBM at Cantonment station on 12 January, announced the country’s Land Transport Authority (LTA). The US$1.68bn worth of civils contracts
which make up package CCL6 involved 4km of tunnelling and the construction of three new stations, with works beginning in August 2019. Three stretches of twin tunnels bored by three TBMs link the new stations – Keppel, Cantonment and Prince Edward Road – to the rest of the Circle Line. The first stretch of tunnelling works
Above: Femern is using the services of ‘Simson’, one of the world’s largest backhoe dredgers with a 20m+ reach and a 34m3
shovel
GERMANY – Following ‘urgent’ concerns raised by an environmental group, a federal court in Leipzig, Germany has recommended a suspension of dredging work at contended reef areas on the German side of the Fehmarnbelt fixed link. ’Aktionsbündnis gegen eine feste
Fehmarnbeltquerung’ (the Alliance against a Fehmarnbelt fixed link) had protested against the start of work in newly discovered reef areas in coastal waters off Puttgarden – a coastal village on the German island of Fehmarn. Reefs were discovered after the
project received the green light from the German government in January 2019. The Alliance’s action was in response to work in contested areas, despite a court ruling of 1 September 2021 in which the state amended the scheme’s original planning approval for the German section, ordering immediate enforceability to account for and minimise the destruction of newly-discovered reefs. Reef biotopes in the Fehmarnbelt
are regarded as noteworthy due to their ‘exceptional biodiversity’ and their importance in a heavily polluted Baltic Sea. The Alliance has alleged that following discovery of the reefs, Danish state project owner Femern did not map reef areas along the alignment.
6 | February 2022 According to the Alliance, it
is doubtful whether enough ‘compensation areas’ can be found in the Baltic where the contractor could create artificial reefs to compensate for those damaged or destroyed by construction. As long as this remains in doubt, the viability of the project is questionable if allowed to continue, contended the Alliance. Despite this, other work is continuing on both sides of the project. Due to open in 2029, the US$8.2bn
Fehmarnbelt project comprises an 18km immersed tube tunnel beneath the Baltic Sea, linking Puttgarden, Germany with Rødbyhavn, Denmark. It will be the world’s longest immersed tube tunnel and the longest combined road and rail tunnel under water. A total of 79 hollow, reinforced concrete elements – around 217m long, 42m wide and 9m high – and 10 special elements (incorporating a lower floor) will form the tunnel. Cast on land in a newly-built facility, they will be floated out to sea and sunk into a pre-dredged trench on the sea bed. Completion of the project is expected to facilitate freight and passenger travel between Scandinavia and mainland Europe. Ramboll-Arup-TEC JV is the
client’s consultant, while in-house consultancy services are supplied by ÅF-Hansen & Henneberg.
from Keppel station towards Harbour Front station was completed in August 2020. The TBMs were subsequently re-launched to mine between Keppel and Cantonment stations. Works for this section were completed in July 2021. Boring the 2km-long final stretch of
twin tunnels from Prince Edward Road station to Cantonment station completed the CCL6 tunnelling, leaving the package’s civil construction works at around 55% complete. A mix of contractors have worked on the package, mainly China State Construction Engineering Corp and Japan’s Nishimatsu Construction Co. The 40km-long Circle Line will have
33 stations and include 12 interchanges with other MRT lines. LTA expects the project to be on track for a 2026 opening.
Tunnelling begins at flagship Oz pumped hydro facility AUSTRALIA – Tunnelling work has started at the Kidston Pumped Hydro Project which involves the world’s first conversion of a disused gold mine into a pumped-storage hydroelectric power facility. Led by renewable energy and storage
company Genex Power, the scheme is also Australia’s first pumped hydro project for over 40 years. Two former mining pits will function as upper and lower reservoirs. With a 218m max water head between them, the natural battery storage facility is expected to generate up to 250MW of rapid response power for the Australian grid. EPC joint venture John Holland and
McConnell Dowell has started work on the 1.5km-long main access tunnel that will lead to the underground powerhouse cavern located 250m below ground. Drilling and blasting the 6 x 6m tunnel will be undertaken on a 24/7 basis with completion expected in spring 2022. Other tunnels –
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