GS Engineering & Construction said on the 28th that it has finished boring the sections built with a TBM (tunnel boring machine) within the 6.5-kilometer total tunnel length of the North East Link (NEL) roadworks in Melbourne, Australia. A TBM is a mechanical excavation method that bores tunnels by rotating a massive cylindrical machine to break rock and soil. Two TBMs with a diameter of 15.6 meters each completed excavation of their designated tunnel sections and reached their targets.
The Melbourne NEL roadworks are GS Engineering & Construction's first entry into Australia's infrastructure construction market. The project connects the M80 Ring Road in Melbourne's northeast and the Eastern Freeway, and includes construction of an approximately 6.5-kilometer tunnel section and surface road interfaces.
GS Engineering & Construction is carrying out the project as an equity investor in the Spark consortium and as a participant in the design and construction joint venture. In 2021, the government of Victoria, Australia, signed a PPP contract for the NEL roadworks primary package with the Spark consortium.
The contract value for the NEL roadworks package involving GS Engineering & Construction was about 10.1 trillion won at the exchange rate at the time of award, of which GS Engineering & Construction's construction portion is about 2.8 trillion won. This is the company's second-largest overseas single project after the 2009 plant project in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). The NEL roadworks were noted at the time of award as the largest road infrastructure PPP project in Victoria, Australia.
Following completion of tunnel excavation, GS Engineering & Construction plans to proceed sequentially with subsequent works, including installation of internal road structures and electrical, lighting, and safety systems, as well as road interface construction, aiming to open by late 2028.