French construction majors Vinci and Bouygues have won a €264-million ($286 million) contract from Egyptian authorities to build the extension of Line 3 of the Cairo Metro system.
 
The Egyptian authorities have demonstrated renewed confidence in the joint venture led by Vinci Construction Grands Projets alongside Bouygues Travaux Publics, and their Egyptian partners, Orascom Construction and Arab Contractors, by awarding them the contract for the new phase of civil engineering for Line 3 of the Cairo metro between Haroun and El Nozha stations, said a statement from Vinci.

The new phase of works (Phase 4A) continues from the second phase, which was brought into service in May last year more than six months ahead of schedule.

The phase 4A consists of 5.15 km of tunnel and five underground stations on Line 3, the east-west link across the Egyptian capital, the French company stated.

As per the contract, the Vinci-led joint venture will complete the designing, construction and delivery of the project in 34 months.

Vinci said this was possible because of the experience it has acquired over more than 30 years of working on the metro projects, the oldest in Africa, and to a technical innovation.

In a first worldwide, earth pressure balance tunnel boring machine Imhotep, used for the previous phase, will be modified to operate as a slurry pressure balance machine. This change will generate savings for the joint venture on both its execution time and budget, it added.-TradeArabia News Service