CWC takes its tunnel total to œ400 million

A British-led consortium has scooped a œ50 million contract to construct more than eight kilometres of tunnels beneath the Egyptian capital Cairo, as part of a huge scheme to expand and improve the city's sewerage system.

The Anglo-Egyptian team, The Cairo Wastewater Consortium (CWC), is headed by Tarmac Construction in joint venture with Balfour Beatty, Edmund Nuttall and Trafalgar House together with Egyptian company The Arab Contractors. The award is the second project to be won by CWC, following a previous of œ90 million. The first project is due for completion in about a year.

The contract involves the construction of 8.2km of 1.2m diameter tunnels, 32 access shafts, 71 manhole structures and 1.9km of pipeline. Work starts at the end of the year and will take two and a half years to complete. Specially built tunnel boring machines will drive a network of tunnels through the shifting water-bearing sands and silts found beneath Cairo.

In total, CWC has won nearly œ400 million-worth of work on the Cairo sewerage project since 1985. This includes 15km of main trunk sewer up to 5m in diameter. The current contract involves a network of smaller branch tunnels which will be linked to the trunk system.