French equipment to speed up Minsk metro construction

The French company CSM Bessac will supply innovative equipment worth about €11.5 million for the sake of building the third Minsk metro line, BelTA learned from Alexander Kudelko, head of the Minsk metro construction company Minskmetrostroy, on 7 March after the Belarusian and French companies signed the contract for delivering a tunnel-boring complex with peripheral equipment.

The Minskmetrostroy company head said it will be the first time they will use a mechanized tunneling shield. While the new solution cannot accelerate metro construction by five times due to some nuances, it will still accelerate the work by at least 2.5 times. In his words, the equipment will allow building 250m of running tunnels per month while at present the speed varies between 40m and 70m.

Alexander Kudelko said that on 7 March the Minsk City Hall and the Development Bank of the Republic of Belarus signed a memorandum on financing the construction of the third Minsk metro line. In particular, Br450 billion will be borrowed this year. At the same time the Development Bank is about to authorize the loan for buying the new tunnel-boring complex in addition to Br450 billion. The Minskmetrostroy company head went on saying that the work to install the complex will begin in November-December 2014.

In turn, President of CSM Bessac Company Bernard Theron specified that the tunnel-boring complex is large and weighs a lot. Once the factory makes it, it will be disassembled and transported part by part to Belarus. “A similar complex was used to build the underwater tunnel between France and the UK. I mean the technological affinity because it’s been a long time since then and the machine for Minsk will be much more modern. It will be improved but the operation principle will be similar,” said the head of the company.

The French company was chosen via a tender out of several foreign manufacturers.

CSM Bessac Company is part of the Vinci Group, which was established in 1899 and is the world’s largest construction concern in terms of earnings ($50.5 billion per annum). It has implemented about 265,000 projects, including metro tunnels, tunnels for power plants, and transport tunnels. CSM Bessac owns 30 tunnel-boring complexes of various types and diameters. The company also has a design bureau of its own, a design institute and a factory to make the equipment. Technical support for beginner contractors makes a special part of the company’s operation.