Tideway Tunnel Boring Machines Set to Drill

Tideway Tunnel Boring Machines Set to Drill


The first two of six NEC-procured tunnel boring machines are due to start drilling the £4.2 billion Thames Tideway ‘super sewer’ by the end of this year.

‘Millicent’ and 'Ursula’ were both procured for licenced infrastructure provider Tideway under an NEC3 Supply Contract from NFM Techologies in Le Creusot, France. Costing around £15 million each, they were shipped up the Thames via Hamburg, Germany in September.

The 8.8m diameter machines – the largest on the project – are now being assembled in launch adits 53m underground. They will weigh some 1300 t each and measure more than 100 m long when ready.

Millicent will tunnel 5km from the Kirtling Street shaft near Battersea power station to Carnwath Road in Fulham, while Ursula will dig 7.6km from the same shaft to Chambers Wharf in Bermondsey.

The two machines are excavating the central section of the 25km route, which is being delivered under an NEC3 Engineering and Construction Contract Option C (target contract with activity schedule) by a Ferrovial Agroman UK and Laing O’Rourke joint venture.

Completion of the whole NEC-procured river clean-up project is scheduled for 2024.
 
Recent Projects

Recent news

NEC delivering vast cavern complex for relocating Hong Kong sewage works

NEC delivering vast cavern complex for relocating Hong Kong sewage works

NEC contracts are being used to create the largest underground cavern complex in Hong Kong.

Read more
Why we need to start adapting project bank accounts to ring-fence retentions

Why we need to start adapting project bank accounts to ring-fence retentions

As I mentioned in my last editorial, it is over 5 years since the UK government published its consultation report on reforming the practice of withholding cash retentions

Read more
Do what NEC4 ECC says or face the ‘enforcement clauses’

Do what NEC4 ECC says or face the ‘enforcement clauses’

This article, which is an update from one on NEC3 ECC published in the Issue 79, looks at each of the clauses and how they are enforced.

Read more
View all news