Koralm Tunnel: STRABAG wins Austria’s largest construction contract
Main section of Koralm railway between Graz and Klagenfurt
Contract value € 570 million
Construction period between 2011 and 2018
Vienna, 28 October 2010 Today, Thursday, ÖBB Infrastruktur AG and
Austrian construction group STRABAG signed the contract for the
construction of the Koralm Tunnel. A consortium under STRABAG’s
technical and commercial leadership will begin work in early 2011 in
order to complete construction on the main section by late 2018. With a
value of € 570 million, it is the largest construction contract ever
awarded in Austria.
“We are currently finishing work on the Gotthard Base Tunnel in
Switzerland. It is wonderful that we now have the opportunity to again
deploy our decades of expertise in tunnelling in our home country of
Austria,” says Hans Peter Haselsteiner, CEO of STRABAG SE.
The Koralm Tunnel is the main section of the new Koralm railway link to
be built between Graz and Klagenfurt and represents an important
section of the Baltic-Adriatic axis of TEN Corridor No. 23 between
Gdańsk, Warsaw, Vienna and Bologna. Upon completion, the Koralm Tunnel
will be 32.5 km long, making it the longest railway tunnel in Austria
and one of the longest in the world.
STRABAG, working together with Jäger Bau GmbH, will construct two
parallel, single-track bores with a length of 20 km each using two
tunnel boring machines with a diameter of 9.9 m. The 8.5 million tonnes
of excavated material will be used to produce 1.0 million m³ of
concrete for the inner lining of the tunnel. The work represents a
particular technical challenge as the only access possibility to the
underground construction site is through a 60 m access shaft near
Deutschlandsberg in southern Styria.
STRABAG SE is one of Europe’s leading construction groups. With some
75,500 employees, STRABAG generated a construction output volume of €
13.0 billion in the 2009 financial year. As a result, STRABAG is listed
in the Fortune Global 500 list as one the largest companies worldwide.
From its core markets of Austria and Germany, STRABAG is present via
its numerous subsidiaries in all countries of Eastern and South-East
Europe, in selected markets in Western Europe and on the Arabian
Peninsula. STRABAG’s activities span the entire construction industry
(Building Construction and Civil Engineering, Transportation
Infrastructures, Special Foundation Engineering and Tunnelling) and
cover the entire value-added chain in the field of construction. More
information is available at www.strabag.com.
