LTA, the Singapore Land Transport Authority, awarded the contract for the construction of two new sections of the Singapore underground railway system to FCC today, through FCC's Austrian subsidiary ALPINE. The sections are a total of 4,000 metres long, and the contract is worth 334 million euro.

In May ALPINE wound up construction on a section of the same system, worth 73.4 million euro, and it has another section in progress under a contract for 190.6 million euro, whose tunnel was finished last week.

The contract awards won today are for sections C-917 and C-918, which belong to Line 2, and they are 1,800 and 2,200 metres long, respectively. Both sections will be built almost entirely in the shape of twin tubes having an outer diameter of 6.6 metres, lined with prefabricated concrete segments. The completion period will be 46 months long.

Section C-917 will include Blackmore Station and Sixth Avenue Station, each of which is approximately 183 metres long.

The tunnel's two tubes will be bored out with two tunnel-boring machines and lined with prefabricated concrete segments.

The second section, C-918, will consist of a 920-metre-long, two-tube tunnel, 234-metre-long Duchess Station, 445 metres of cut-and-cover tunnel and 560 metres of double tube having an outer diameter of 6.6 metres.

The two 920-metre-long tubes will be bored with two slurry TBMs, while the 560-metre-long section will be bored with a single EPB TBM, and prefabricated concrete segments will also be used for lining here.

ALPINE has a great deal of expertise in tunnel building all over the world. It is currently engaged in building Pfänder Tunnel, Katschberg Tunnel and Lainzer Tunnel in Austria. It is participating in the construction of Gotthard Base Tunnel in Switzerland, and it is building part of the new underground system in New Delhi, in addition to a headrace tunnel at India's Tapovan power plant.

Moreover, it is participating in the construction of tunnels for power plants in Bulgaria and Turkey. It recently won a contract to build a water tunnel in China. It is providing tunnel consultancy services in the USA, Russia, Kazakhstan and the United Kingdom, providing ALPINE know-how and planning knowledge.

ALPINE does business worldwide. With a turnover of 3,500 million euro in construction in 2008 and some 15,530 employees, it is Austria's second-biggest construction group.