Webuild-led consortium confirmed for US$1.1 billion tunnelling work on Melbourne’s Suburban Rail Loop East

Terra Verde, a consortium of Italian contractor Webuild, GS Engineering & Construction of South Korea and French contractor Bouygues, announced it has been awarded the contract to excavate two parallel 10-kilometre tunnels between the future stations of Box Hill and Glen Waverley; create 39 cross passages between them; two station boxes; two tunnel access shafts; and one intervention and ventilation shaft. The tunnels will be excavated using tunnel-boring machines (TBMs).

Image: Webuild

The Terra Verde consortium was named as preferred bidder on the project in July.

Last year the Suburban Rail Loop Authority, the state owned body in charge of creating the 90 kilometre long semicircular rail line which will run around Melnourne’s CBD connecting Cheltenham with Werribee, awarded a AUS$3.6 billion (US$2.4 billion) contract to a consortium of CPB Contractors, Acconia and Ghella to tunnel the other 16 kilometers of the line’s 26 kilometres of twin tunnels.

Melbourne’s Suburban Rail Loop has become increasingly controversial since the project was first proposed by the Labour-led Victorian state government in August 2018.

The government argues that the project will improve travel efficiency for more than 80% of Melburnians and take more than 600,000 cars off the roads every day.

However, the Liberal/National opposition remains opposed to the project on the grounds that it is a waste of money and has pledged to pause it if the coalition gets into government in the 2026 election.