Australia’s Leighton Contractors, in joint venture with Kumagai Gumi of Japan, has signed a A$324.5M (US$243M) contract with the Western Australia government to build 1.3km of tunnel for Perth’s MetroRail project.
The deal involves the design and construction of 600m of cut and cover tunnel and 700m of twin bored tunnel, together with underground stations at the Esplanade and William Street.
Work also includes drainage, the diversion of utilities, roadworks, railway track and overhead lines and associated construction.
Ray Sputore, Leighton’s West Australian general manager, said: “There is no doubt that this will be a challenging project. The city component of the works involves a number of different construction techniques and work will take place around a fully operational central business district.”
He added: “We are confident that the project will run as planned particularly given our joint venture partner, Kumagai Gumi, has significant experience in soft ground tunnelling, which is what we are likely to encounter here in Perth.”
Alannah MacTiernan, Western Australian planning and infrastructure minister, said initial work was due to start in March, although tunnelling under the central business district (CBD) is unlikely to begin until March 2005. Work is due to be completed by the end of 2006.
The contract is the second to be won by Leighton on the MetroRail scheme after it won a US$74M deal in January this year.
Sputore said:”We are delighted that we have reached financial close and look forward to starting work on the projects, which together represent the largest civil contracts ever undertaken in Western Australia by Leighton Contractors.”
MacTiernan confirmed that the total capital works budget for Perth’s MetroRail scheme was A$1.13bn (US$855M).
