Five shortlisted consortia have been invited by Thames Water to bid for tunnelling the east section of the Thames Tideway sewer project, which could be worth up to £800 million.
Thames Water says it expects to invite shortlisted candidates to bid for the larger, central section which could be worth up to £950 million in April, and has already invited bids for the third, west, section that is expected to cost up to £500 million.
The five shortlisted consortia, made up of contractors from across Europe, will be cut down to two preferred bidders by May next year. Construction will start on site in 2016, creating over 9,000 construction jobs on 24 construction sites across London. Thames says around 500 people are already working on the project.
Thames Tideway Tunnel managing director Mike Gerrard, said:
“The tender process is now well under way and we are confident that our process will ensure competitive bids that will result in the best value for our customers.
“We are building for 22nd Century London to create a cleaner, healthier River Thames. The Thames Tideway Tunnel is needed to tackle the tens of millions of tonnes of raw sewage which discharge into the tidal River Thames every year. The river needs cleaning up and it needs to be cleaned up now.”
A novel approach is being adopted for finance and delivery of the water project, using an independent Infrastructure Provider (IP), with its own licence from Ofwat. Thames Water, Government and Ofwat are finalising the financing arrangements for the project and selection of the IP is expected to begin later this year.
The shortlisted bidders for the contracts are:
West
- Bam Nuttall, Balfour Beatty, Morgan Sindall JV
- Costain, Vinci, Bachy JV
- Dragados, Samsung JV
- Ferrovial Agroman, Laing O’Rourke JV
Central
- Bam Nuttall, Balfour Beatty, Morgan Sindall JV
- Costain, Vinci, Bachy JV
- Ferrovial Agroman, Laing O’Rourke JV
- Skanska, Bilfinger, Razel Bec JV
East
- Bam Nuttall, Balfour Beatty, Morgan Sindall JV
- Bechtel, Strabag JV
- Bouygues Travaux Publics
Photo of Abbey Mills Pumping Station F: Gordon Joly
