Bauer wins $62.3m specialist foundation contract

Bauer Spezialtiefbau, the company responsible for enabling works at the Kingdom Tower site in Jeddah, has won a $62.3m job to carry out specialist foundation engineering works on a rail bypass project in central Germany – its largest ever contract in that country.

A 7km, double-tracked bypass rail link is being built between the cities of Hanau and Nantenbach in order to reduce noise pollution for local residents.

The work also includes the building of new stations and the renovation of a number of existing stations. The line will replace the existing route through the Schwarzkopf tunnel, which cannot be modernized for economic and technical reasons.

The works which Bauer has been assigned on the two contracted sections include the installation of 53,000 square metres of pile wall as well as eight kilometres of anchors for the four new tunnel constructions.

One of the technical challenges of the project is the need to drill into hard rock in places. Several Bauer BG 28 and BG 40 rotary drilling rigs along with anchor drilling rigs will be deployed. At peak times up to 10 rigs will be operating simultaneously.

Thomas Bauer, chairman of the firm’s management board, said: “This is a great contract for us in our home market, and it is indeed our biggest contract in Germany to date.

“After having recently completed work on the large-scale Luise-Kiesselbach-Platz project in Munich, we have now once again secured a healthy utilization of our capacities in Germany for the medium term.”

Bauer Spezialtiefbau GmbH is scheduled to start work on the project at the end of the year. The work will take about four years to complete. Most of it will be carried out during 2014 and 2015.

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