Concluding over a year of talks, TBM manufacturers Wirth of Germany and France’s NFM Technologies have joined forces in a bid to strengthen their global market position for the supply of tunnelling machines to international infrastructure projects.
NFM has become a ‘self-standing sister company’ on an equal footing within the Wirth Group that already includes Soltau Microtunnelling and roadheader specialist division Paurat. The merger has also increased the manufacturing and assembly workshop space of the group to 50,000m².
Director of Tunnelling at Wirth, Hermann Hamburger told T&TI, "there is a lot of synergy between the two groups with NFM specialising in soft ground and Wirth in hard rock, they also have excellent facilities for machine assembly in their plant (in Lyon)."
The move will see the combined companies capable of bidding for a broader scope of contracts on a far stronger footing, "we have to give Herrenknecht a run for his money!" Hamburger joked continuing that, "the order book was already pretty full."
Previous to the join, NFM was already subcontracted by Wirth for detailed design and assembly of the two 9.5m diameter TBMs to be supplied later this year to the Guadarrama high speed rail tunnels in Spain. NFM will now also assemble the second 8.1m diameter Wirth to be supplied this summer to the Costain/Bachy Soletanche JV for
use on the 4.7km long twin bore CTRL 2 Contract 240. The company is bidding at the moment for the supply contract of two 12m TBMs, one hard rock and one EPBM, for use on the Barcelona Metro.
NFM has a history within the tunnelling industry being most noted for currently building the world’s claimed largest diameter TBM at 14.9m to be used on the 7.2km long Groene Hart Rail Tunnel in Holland.
Wirth chairman, Niko Kleuters will also chair the combined group that has a predicted turnover of some $150M for 2002.
Kleuters said "For the future,NFM Technologies will continue its development in the field of tunnelling machines and is further strengthened as a result of this new organisation."
