As project director on London’s $1.2-billion Silvertown highway tunnel, Juan Angel Martinez Diaz successfully adopted hovercraft-like skates to rotate the job’s 39-ft-dia tunneling shield to drive both bores of the 0.9-mile crossing, saving critical time on the project’s tight schedule.
Project owner Electricité de France now expects to complete the project between 2029 and 2031 and estimates its cost at between $39 billion and $43 billion.
Global construction volume will grow by 1.2% this year and by 3% annual average over the rest of the decade, forecasts London-based Global Construction Perspectives in a report released Jan. 23.
The project was budgeted to cost $57 billion at 2019 prices, but an executive says poor planning and construction cost inflation are impacting the price.
With its workforce now peaking at around 30,000, the U.K.'s London-Birmingham 140-mile HS2 high speed railroad is shifting into the fit-out stage with more than $6 billion of track and system work being readied for procurement.
