COWI Ready to Start Heavy Design Work on World's Longest Immersed-Tube Tunnel

 

COWI Ready to Start Heavy Design Work on World's Longest Immersed-Tube Tunnel

The signing of large infrastructure contracts usually is followed by hectic activity. By contrast, the winning of contracts for the Femern Link, an $8-billion European program to construct the world’s longest immersed-tube tunnel, has been followed by a period of quiet. Designed to connect Denmark and Germany and open for traffic in 2028, the 18-kilometer-long design-build project is in hibernation while permitting on the German side makes slow progress.

International firms such as Copenhagen-based COWI A/S, which became the contractors’ lead design consultant this past March, are keen to get on with the massive underwater tunnel. It is among the largest-ever Danish infrastructure jobs and “one of the biggest-ever projects won by the company,” says Lars-Peter Søbye, COWI’s president and CEO. Winning the design contract “means we have taken all [Denmark’s] fixed links … this was a must-win,” he adds.

Previously, COWI played a major role on Denmark’s two other large sea fixed links, the Great Belt and Øresund. While supporting the contractor’s successful bids for the Femern tunnel, COWI fielded about 30 staff, and when full design begins, the numbers will swell to about 150. But, for now, the team is dormant while Femern A/S (FA/S), the Danish government’s Copenhagen-based project owner, attempts to secure planning approvals from the German authorities.

Major construction firms lie in wait, as well. FA/S on May 30 signed four design-build contracts, worth almost $4.6 billion total and covering the north and south tunnel sections, portals and ramps, and dredging. Until Germany gives final approval, the contracts remain conditional, with break clauses allowing

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