ALPINE, FCC Construcción's Austrian subsidiary, is building an approximately 25-kilometre-long water supply tunnel in Pinglu, in the Chinese province of Shanxi, west of Beijing, for Shanxi Province Wanjiazhai Yellow River Project General Corporation Ltd. The project costs 47 million euro and is scheduled to be completed in 2009.

This tunnel is part of the Main North Line of the Yellow River Diversion Project, and it diverts water from the Yellow River to the regions of Pinglu, Shuozhou and Datong, which have very little water of their own. ALPINE has just finished boring 13 kilometres to Daliang cavern, on the first partial section of this project.

Despite the extremely difficult geological conditions, ALPINE has managed to make progress at an average rate of 750 metres a month. Since the job started in mid-2006, it has been necessary to bore through several zones that are highly complicated, geologically speaking, and several coal deposits up to 12 metres thick. To bore the tunnel, ALPINE is using a special latest-generation TBM with a double telescopic shield for hard rock, articulated in two parts, which provides continuous support for the terrain as the tunnel is pushed forward.

The bored tunnel is 4.8 metres in diameter. To line it, 83,450 pieces of concrete lining will be used, cast at a prefabricated-parts plant set up right at the site, where 54,200 lining pieces have already been produced so far.

ALPINE's team is posted there until mid-2005. Four hundred jobs were created for this project.

ALPINE in China
Back in the late nineties, ALPINE built two pumping stations for the Yellow River Diversion Project. It also handled the construction of the 42-kilometre-long Ningbo-Shengzhou Expressway on China's east coast.

Picture:Team: Josef GLANTSCHNIG (Machinist), Bobby ROBBERTZE (Hydraulic Engineer), Augustin PICHLER (Site Manager), Alex SIMPSON (Foreman tunnel drive), Peter ENGE (Project Manager), Hans Jürgen MICK (Foreman tunnel drive)