Thames Water will be looking for bids from contractors as far afield as China or Singapore when the Thames Tunnel project is put out to tender.
Speaking at the Tunnelling Conference in London today, Phil Stride, head of Thames Water London Tideway Tunnels said that accessing Asian tunnelling expertise could help to keep the costs of the project down.
Phil Stride commented:
“There is a lot of expertise in China, which could benefit this project. We are not necessarily talking about a contractor from China or Singapore carrying out a section of the Thames Tunnel alone, but maybe in joint venture with a partner.”
Thames Water are planning to put out a number of large tunnelling contracts at the same time and the utility is keen to obtain to a competitive price.
The current plan is to split the scheme into three sections which are designed to minimise the need for contractor interaction.
Thames Water will be looking to put the reference design out to tender in 2012 in the expectation the scheme would gain approval in 2014 to allow a 2016 start on the tunnelling work.
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