Skanska International Civil Engineering is currently making steady progress having completed 30% of tunnelling works on the Kukule Ganga project in Sri Lanka.
The $50M project is being carried out for the client, Ceylon Electricity Board, the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka and the Ministry of Irrigation & Power and is located 70km south east of Colombo.
The main structure is the 5.7km long, 6.4m diameter headrace tunnel that is mostly unlined with a paved invert. Other work includes two adit tunnels, one 450m long and one 500m long with a horseshoe profile of 5.8m diameter. Also included is a 61m deep, 7.5m diameter upstream surge shaft, a vertical 121m deep, 4.8m diameter penstock, a 1.6km long 6.4m diameter tailrace tunnel, a 450m long, 5.8m diameter main access tunnel to the power station and a 29x16x52m³ underground powerhouse.
All construction is being undertaken using drill + blast with shotcrete and grouted anchorst. The contractor is using Atlas Copco H178 drilling jumbo’s with three boomers and Volvo wheel loaders with Scania P113 and Volvo F12 Dumpers for mucking. Drilling is through biotite gneiss, hornblende-biotite gneiss, amphibolite and quartz-feldspar gneiss.
The hydropower plant is a run of the river project and construction is scheduled to finish in 2003. The project is financed by the Japanese soft loan agency JBIC, formerly the OECF.
