Six contractors want to participate in the competition to build the Stad ship tunnel. Among the contractors there are two Norwegian, one French, one Spanish/Norwegian and two Chinese providers.

- We are pleased that so many and solid entrepreneurs want to be competing to build a Stad ship tunnel. It facilitates that we get good competition between the providers, says Harald Inge Johnsen, project manager for Stad Ship Tunnel at Kystverket (the Norwegian Coastal Administration).

The tender was announced on November 29 last year. When the deadline for submitting a request to participate in the competition expired on January 31, the following providers (contractors/working communities) had signed up:

• Provider 1: Work Community: Skanska Norge AS and Vassbakk and Stol AS (Norway)
• Provider 2: AF Gruppen Norge AS (Norway)
• Provider 3: Labor Community: Powerchina International Group Limited, Sichuan Road and Brigde Corporation Ltd., Sinohydro Bureau 7. Ltd, Powerchina Huadong Engineering (China)
• Provider 4: Eiffage Genie Civil (France)
• Provider 5: Work Community: China Road and Bridge Corporation, CCCC Second Highway Engineering Co. Ltd., CCCC Highway Consultants Co. Ltd (china)
• Provider 6: Work Community: Acciona Construccion S.A and Bertelsen and Garpestad AS (Spain / Norway)

Prequalification, offers and negotiations

The work on Stad's ship tunnel is announced as a total contract with pre-qualification and negotiations. Kystverket will now review the documents from the providers to see if they meet the qualification requirements.

• In the pre-qualification, we will, besides having the necessary certificates and more, consider the providers' technical and professional qualifications, whether they have sufficient experience from similar work as in the ship tunnel project, says Johnsen, and particularly highlight the demanding tunnel openings.
• The biggest challenge for the contractors will probably be the elements of the tunnel. They become as large as the tunnel room within, ie 50 meters high and around 40 meters wide. It is about seven times higher than a road tunnel, says Johnsen.

How many of these contractors are allowed to join and deliver offers on the building job itself?

• We have previously said that we will take three to five providers from this pre -qualification to deliver offers. But now we have to get the requests thoroughly evaluated, before we say something about the final number and not least what providers this will be, says Johnsen.

Further process

Kystverket is planning to finish the evaluation in March. The best qualified contractors/work communities are invited to join the process and submit offers. The offers are again evaluated and negotiated, often in several rounds, before the best offer based on the award criteria is selected.

If everything goes as we hope it can be contract signing in the fall of 2025 and construction start in early 2026. This requires that offers are achieved within the cost framework for the project. Construction time has estimated Kystverket at about five years.

About Stad Ship Tunnel

The goal of project Stad ship tunnel is to improve accessibility and safety for sea transport past Stad, probably the most weathered and most dangerous sea piece along the Norwegian coast. The ship tunnel will be built where the Stad-Peninsula is at its narrowest, between Moldefjorden and Kjødepollen, in the Vanylvsfjord.

The tunnel will be 1.7 kilometers long (2.2 km with entrance areas), 50 meters high and with a width of 36 meters - which means that vessels up to the size of the coastal route/ Hurtigruten will be able to get a safe voyage past Stadlandet.

source: Kystverket.