Turin–Lyon high-speed line base tunnel excavation contract awarded

The planned railway under the Alps between Turin and Lyon is a major project of the Trans-European Transport Network (TEN-T), the ambitious European Union (EU) sustainable mobility initiative to connect the continent’s railway networks and increase the transport of people and goods on rail rather than road.

Commissioned by Tunnel Euralpin Lyon Turin (TELT), the contract involves Lot 2, namely Work Sites 6 (La Praz) and 7 (Saint-Martin-de-la-Porte). It entails excavating a combined total of 46km, including the two parallel tunnels for the railway as well as auxiliary tunnels and caverns between the towns of Saint-Martin-de-la-Porte and La Praz on the French side of the border. Most of the excavation will use traditional methods and tunnel-boring machines (TBMs) and will be focused on the two parallel tunnels.

Lot 2 is the second contract to be won by Webuild on the project. In 2020, the Group and is joint-venture partners won a contract for Lot 5A that involves preparatory works for a safety site at Modane and four ventilation shafts for the future base tunnel ahead of the creation of a logistics hub 500m under the Ambin Massif.

The entire TELT project will stretch for 65km between Susa in Piedmont, Italy and Saint-Jean-de-Maurienne in Savoy, France. Of its total length, 57.5km will be underground, approximately 10km of which have already been excavated.

The TELT is a major section of TEN-T’s Mediterranean Corridor that will connect southwestern Europe with Central and Eastern European countries. By 2030, the Turin–Lyon railway will take enough trucks off the roads to contribute to the reduction of the equivalent of three million tonnes of CO₂ each year.

With this new contract, Webuild has approximately €9 billion worth of new orders that it has acquired, is in the process of finalising and for which it has become the preferred bidder so far in 2021. The orders highlight the Group’s focus on Italy, Australia, France and Switzerland. Their combined value excludes the recent signing of a final contract worth $16 billion (€13.1 billion) for the construction of a high-speed railway in Texas.