Its general manager, Stephen Ng, said on 17 December that the machine from Semantan was expected to reach KL Sentral station in the third week of that month.
"A total of 10 TBMs will be used to excavate the twin-bored tunnels for the Sungai Buloh-Kajang Mass Rapid Transit Line (MRT). All the tunnel drives will be at various stages of completion by end-2014," he said.
He said different soil conditions required different types of boring machines.
"The company will use two kinds of TBMs – Earth Pressure Balance and Variable Density Slurry — to construct the tunnels in Kenny Hill and karstic limestone respectively.
He said the remaining three machines had arrived in Malaysia and would be launched soon from the respective sites.
To date, the company has two TBMs underground from Semantan to KL Sentral, two from Cochrane to Maluri, two from Cochrane to Pasar Rakyat and one from Inai to Bukit Bintang, he said.
Meanwhile, Mass Rapid Transit Corp Sdn Bhd has reported 28.55 per cent overall progress for the elevated package and 41.5 per cent progress for the underground works progress.
"The tunnelling period is approximately 20 months commencing from May 2013. KVMRT project is targeted to be completed by July 2017," it said.
The seven underground stations of the MRT Sungai Buloh-Kajang Line are KL Sentral, Pasar Seni, Merdeka, Bukit Bintang, Pasar Rakyat, Cochrane and Maluri.
