The AlpTransit Gotthard Company (ATG), responsible for building Switzerland’s 52km long alpine rail tunnels at Gotthard, has received a request for a supplementary payment of US$71.6M from contractor consortium, TAT, for its 16.6km long Bodio section of the works.
ATG announced in late October that the TAT consortium had submitted a request to cover the Bodio – Faido section of the Gotthard Base Tunnel. TAT’s request represents 5.5% of the original US$1.29bn contract value that was awarded.
In a release, ATG said that the TAT consortium maintained that geological conditions differed from predictions. Under the terms of the contract, responsibility for deviations from conditions predicted in the tender documents, which formed the basis of the tender, rests with ATG. This can also apply with conditions being better than expected.
ATG said that it would examine the application over the coming months. Since construction began on the scheme, ATG has received four requests for supplementary payments, totalling US$15.2M, not including the most recent one. Three of the requests were settled by negotiation with a total of US$5.1M being granted. An outstanding request for US$2.6M is yet to be agreed.
Current conditions are not an issue and according to ATG’s status report for the Bodio section up to mid November, “geological conditions in recent weeks have been mostly good, with coarse-grained gneiss and generally little or moderate fissuring.”
The east tunnel TBM has excavated 5.2km, with it’s west tunnel counterpart covering 6.1km. Average advance of 14.2m per day in the east tunnel have been achieved, with 12.7m per day for the west tunnel. In both, anchors, partial arches and mesh have met ground support requirements.
