Preferred bidders selected for Thames Tideway 27 Feb 2015

Preferred bidders for the three major tunnelling contracts to construct the 25km long x 7.2m i.d. Thames Tideway Tunnel are announced. Contractors for each of the lots that divide the project according to geographical conditions into the West, Central, and East contracts, are:

• West - £300–500 million - BMB JV
BAM Nuttall/Morgan Sindall/Balfour Beatty
• Central - £600–950 million - FLO JV
Ferrovial Agroman/Laing O’Rourke
• East - £500–800 million - CVB JV 
Costain/Vinci/Bachy Soletanche

Thames Tideway construction lots and main shafts

Contract award is scheduled for summer this year (2015), once investors ready to finance the project are chosen and announced. Main construction is programmed to start in 2016, with completion of the project due by 2023.

Andy Mitchell, Chief Executive at Thames Tideway Tunnel, said: “We have selected our preferred bidders to work on the three main works packages because we have absolute faith in their ability to carry out these major pieces of work safely, considerately and sustainably and we are looking forward to working with them to offer the thousands of jobs that will help make this project a reality.”

A separate company known as an Infrastructure Provider, with its own licence from the UK Government water industry regulator OFWAT, will manage the construction, financing and delivery the project.

In June 2014, TunnelTalk published the list of groups that prequalified to bid on each of the construction lots (Table 1). Each contract comprises tunnelling distances of approximately 7km, 13km, and 5.5km for the West, Central and East contracts respectively.

*Original JV partner Bilfinger announced withdrawal from all civil tunnelling in May 2014

** Bechtel/Strabag JV was shortlisted to tender but did not make a bid