Swedish construction giant NCC has won three tunnel orders.

The first, in the remote Faeroe Islands, involves the construction of the 5km-long Vagar road tunnel under the Vestmannasund Straits in a deal worth Swedish krone 180m (US$18.5 m).

The tunnel will be the longest in the Faeroe Islands and the region’s first underwater tunnel. The 10.5m-wide link will connect the island of Vagar, the site of the Faeroe Islands’ only airport, with the island of Streymoy, where the capital city Thorshavn is situated.

Travel time from Thorshavn to the airport and a large number of other locations on the Islands will be reduced by more than an hour when the new tunnel becomes operational in 2003.

Work will be carried out by NCC Tunnelling in joint venture with NCC subsidiaries in Denmark and Norway. NCC Tunnelling was formed recently following NCC’s acquisition of Norway’s Statkraft Anlegg AS.

In Costa Rica, NCC International will build two water transmission tunnels as part of two hydro-electric power projects with a combined value of Swedish krone 1.3bn (US$135 m).

The firm is part of the Consortio Noruego group, which also includes General Electric Energy Norway and Alstom Norway. Statkraft Grner is the designer.

The first scheme, Brasil II, is located on the Rio Virilla River, outside San Jose and apart from the transmission tunnel involves construction of a concrete dam, culverts, pressure pipes and a 31MW surface power plant.

The second station, El Encanto, is about 100 km north-west of San Jose on the Aranjuez River. Construction also calls for a transmission tunnel, concrete dam, pressure pipes and a 9 MW surface power plant.

In the Dominican Republic, NCC International will build a pressure tunnel and a flushing tunnel as part of a dam project on the Camu River in La Vega Province in the western part of the country.

The dam and associated tunnels will help secure water supplies in the area, for both drinking water and farm irrigation. The project involves a 70m-high ballast-filled dam with an asphalt core, concrete intake and overflow structures and a 4 MW surface power plant.