Second phase of Qinghai-Tibet railway will be 1,118 km-long and mainly above 4,000 m altitude from Golmud to Lhasa, with 1.72 km-long Yangbajin tunnel. Visit www.xinhua.cn 34/01.

  Invitation to tender expected August, 2001 for three drill/blast, concrete-lined tunnelling contracts totalling 21.5 km for Zhangjiuhe project, supervised by Electrowatt. Contact wangdi@minmetals.com or visit www.electrowatt.com 28/01. Construction began on 28th November, 2001 to drive one of the tunnels through mountains to channel water from Zhangjiu River to Kunming, capital of Yunnan Province in southwest China as part of the US$476 million Zhangjiuhe River Water Division & Water Supply Project, the largest in China. Contract CW-BID1 includes the 7,797 m-long Kangle tunnel, and the 13,733 m-long Shanggongshan tunnel. Both will be excavated by a TBM and lined by precast concrete segmental lining, filled with gravel and grout. Electrowatt Engineering, a subsidiary of Finland's Jaakko Pöyry Group, has been appointed to supervise construction of these two tunnels, of 3.6 metres in diameter. Visit www.poyry.com. Contract CW-BID5 includes the 8,237 m-long Pingdi tunnel. Contract CW-BID6 includes the 3,595 m-long Qingshuitang tunnel, the 11,163 m-long Changkou tunnel, and the 1,465 m-long Huanghuipo tunnel. Contract CW-BID7 includes the 9,045 m-long Wulaoshan tunnel. All these tunnels will be excavated using the drill/blast method, and lined with cast in-situ concrete. The Japanese Bank for International Cooperation (JBIC) has granted US$173.2 million in loans for the project. When the project is completed in 2005, it will provide 250 million cu m of water annually to Kunming, doubling the city's present water supply. Visit www.minmetals.com.cn 06/02.Award to CMC of a contract for a water supply programme in Kunming, Yunnan Province's capital. The contract is worth €37 million. Two tunnels totalling 21.6 km will be excavated. CMC will use a full-face TBM and the tunnel will be segmentally lined. Financing by the Japanese government. Time frame of four years. Visit www.cmcra.com 17/02.Electrowatt Infra, which is part of the Jaakko Pöyry Group, has been awarded an extension of the services contract in the Kunming water supply tunnel project by the Zhangjiuhe River Water Diversion and Water Supply Project Administration Bureau. The contract is a continuation to the assignment commenced in 2001 which now will continue until March 2007. The value of the contract now awarded is about EUR1 million. The project is located in Kunming and comprises two tunnels of 13.7 and 7.8 km and a headwork complex. Electrowatt Infra's services include technical and financial bid evaluation, construction supervision, settlement monitoring, quality control and project management. Visit www.poyry.com 06/06.The last section of the Zhangjihe river water diversion and water supply project in Kunming constructed by CMC in Yunnan province broke through on 17th November, 2006. The event enables to meet and anticipate the contractual date for the end of work scheduled for 31st March, 2007. The contract mostly includes the construction of two pressure tunnels (1.7 bar) of a comprehensive length of 21.5 km (contract CW-BID1). These water transfer tunnels for irrigation are the 7,808 m Kangle tunnel, inner diameter of 3 m, and the 13,769 m Shanggongshan tunnel, inner diameter of 3 m. A big part of the excavation of the tunnels, lined with prefabricated bolted concrete segments, has been performed using a Robbins double shield TBM. The overall amount of the works is about EUR95 million. Visit www.cmc.coop and www.robbinstbm.com 49/06.

Construction of 11.5 km connection including 1.5 km-long tunnel from Jingwei Street on south bank of Songhua river to Limin development zone on north bank to start August, 2001 using Malaysian contractors, for completion 2003. Visit www.xinhua.cn 20/01.

Construction of west-east 19.42 km, $857.8 million No 1 Subway line to commence in Xi'an, capital of Shaanxi Province financed by loans and foreign investment to be recouped over next 28 years. Visit www.xinhua.cn 19/01.

Atkins/Arup to prepare plans for 2.7 km-long rail tunnel from end of Tung Chung line at Hong Kong station to new Exhibition station in Wan Chai for MTRC as first part of planned $650 million North Island line. Second phase will require 800 m of tunnel to new Tamar station. Preliminary design by end-2001, with design/build tenders to follow. Visit www.arup.com December 2000.

Alstom and Thales were awarded a contract worth EUR330 million by MTR Corporation, the operator of Hong Kong’s metro network, to resignal and upgrade the signalling systems of seven metro lines. A maintenance option is also included in the contract. This extensive project will equip the seven MTR lines - Tsuen Wan Line (TWL), Island Line (ISL), including the new extension to Western District, Kwun Tong Line (KTL), Tseung Kwan O Line (TKL), Airport Express Link (AEL), Tung Chung Line (TCL) and Disneyland Resort Line (DRL) - with the latest Communications Based Train Control (CBTC) technology, safely adding capacity, reliability and maintainability on the existing infrastructure system. Visit www.thalesgroup.com and www.alstom.com. 05/15.

NCC to undertake turnkey construction for BP Ningbo Huadong LPG Co Ltd of $96.5 million facility on Daixie Dao island south of Shanghai in jv with Chiyoda of Japan. NCC responsible for underground work which constitutes 20% of contract value. Visit www.ncc.se May 2000.

Preliminary design well advanced by Mott Connell for 4.2 km tunnel from So Kwun Wat and Lam Tei in New Territories as part of Route 10 expressway to connect Hong Kong with mainland China. Award of further design contract covering adjacent tunnels and viaducts to Tsing Lung Tau imminent. Contact www.mottmac.com May 2000.

Kvaerner Cementation and Gammon Construction report completion for the Drainage Service Department of more than 5 km of sewers through reclaimed land to form a new sewerage system from Kennedy Town to Wanchai. The $65 million contract involved pipejacking a total of 41 tunnels of diameters 1.2 m to 1.8 m from manholes up to 16 m deep. Details from www.kvaerner.com April 2000.

The $210 million, 109 km-long Xiaotang-Gantang Expressway, including 7 km of twin-tube tunnels, is under construction in south-east China through difficult terrain in ground comprising peltic sandstone and karstic limestone. Of the seven main tunnels, only Meiziao (780m/735m) and Shimen'ao (1,130m/1,290m) are fully excavated. Wequan (390m/355m) is well advanced, Pingshi (510m/505m) is halfway, Pishuang'ao (750m/760m) and Wukengba (1,333m/1,188m) are one-third complete, while the longest, Yangpeng (2,053m/2,110m), is only 25% complete. Major collapse on Yangpeng right tube last October displaced 4,000 cu m of rock and mud accompanied by an inflow of 2 cu m/sec of water, and recovery is still proceeding. At the same time, a smaller collapse in the right tube at the Zhuhai end of the Wukengba tunnel funnelled 30 m to surface and took a month to correct. Concrete lining is underway in all tubes. Project is funded 30% by World Bank and is scheduled for completion at end-2001. The owner is Guangdong Provincial Freeway Company, and the Engineer is a jv of Guangdong Research Institute and Snowy Mountains Engineering Corporation. Concrete lining is underway in all tubes. Visit www.smec.com.au April 2000.

Feasibility study underway into a planned 25 km-long railway line from Hankou mainline station to Wuchang district in Wuhan, capital of Hubei Province. The project would involve building 19 km in tunnel, including a 2.9 km road-and-rail section beneath the mighty Yangtze river, and constructing 17 stations, 14 of which will be underground. The planned tunnel across the Yangtze is estimated to cost $242 million and the overall project $2.03 billion. February 2000.