Webuild Wins €1.6 Billion Contract for Santomarco Tunnel

The Webuild Group, in a consortium, has won a new contract on the new high-speed/high-capacity Salerno-Reggio Calabria rail line. As leader of the consortium with a 60 percent stake, the Group was awarded the €1.6-billion (~$1.87 billion USD) contract that covers construction of the Paola-Cosenza section. This crosses approximately 22.2 km of Calabria, and will be underground nearly all the way. The main work in the project, commissioned by RFI (FS Italiane Group), is the Santomarco Tunnel, which will be over 15 km long. It is considered a strategic part of the line.

The project will significantly improve the capacity and efficiency of the railway connection between the Tyrrhenian coast and inland areas of Calabria, ensuring better accessibility to Cosenza and strengthening the Bari-Taranto-Gioia Tauro freight route. The Tunnel will be separated about 100 m from the existing single-track tunnel, which will be decommissioned once the work is complete. Four tunnel-boring machines (TBMs) will be used to excavate the double-tube, single-track tunnel.

Works will be built by Webuild as leader of the consortium with Ghella, Pizzarotti, and SELI, the Group subsidiary specializing in tunneling, with an estimated employment of up to 1,500 people, including direct and third-party personnel. The route will cross the Province of Cosenza, passing through the municipalities of Paola, San Lucido, Rende, Montalto Uffugo, San Vincenzo la Costa, and San Fili. A total of nine railway bridges and two viaducts are planned. One viaduct, 350 m long, will cross the A2 motorway; a second, 205 m long, will cross the Settimo stream. A new station will be built in Montalto Uffugo to serve the territory and the university campus in Rende.

This work is a key step in completing the high-speed/high-capacity Salerno-Reggio Calabria line. It will contribute to improve the economic and social development of Southern Italy as part of the Scandinavian-Mediterranean Corridor in the TEN-T Network, a strategic axis connecting the southern part of the peninsula with Northern Italy and Europe.

Construction of the entire line will guarantee fast, high-capacity rail transport to areas that are currently excluded, such as Cilento, Vallo di Diano, the Ionian coast, Cosenza, and the Reggino area, enhancing economic growth and tourism. Once complete, the work will reduce the travel time between Rome and Reggio Calabria.

On the same Salerno-Reggio Calabria line, Webuild is already constructing Lot 1A Battipaglia-Romagnano, the first step in the entire infrastructure, involving 35 km of new line and the junction with the Potenza-Metaponto section. For this section, Webuild has started the engine of the largest TBM in Europe in recent months to excavate the Saginara Tunnel. As of today, Webuild will build approximately 60 km of the high-speed railway section between Salerno and Reggio Calabria.

With the awarding of the Paola-Cosenza section of the Salerno-Reggio Calabria line, the number of projects being developed by Webuild in the Southern Italy total 19, the largest being more than 320 km of high-speed/high-capacity rail lines. For these large projects, Webuild is employing 8,700 people (directly and indirectly), involving 7,600 supply chain companies since works began.