Fehmarn engineering plans go ahead

Femern Bælt A/S , the Danish firm created to plan the link, said seven groups tendered. Chosen bridge consultants are Danish-German joint venture Cowi A/S & Obermeyer. Denmark’s Cowi has been involved for decades with some of the world’s largest bridges while Obermeyer is one of Germany’s largest engineering and architectural consultants. They will be backed by German, British and Danish sub-consultants.

Tunnel consultants are a Danish-British-Dutch joint venture grouping Denmark’s Rambøll, the UK’s Ove Arup & Partners, and Holland’s Tunnel Engineering Consultants. All have had key roles in some of the world’s largest infrastructure projects and will be supported by firms from Germany, Britain, Denmark and Japan.

Seven international groups submitted tenders, four for the bridge and three for the tunnel. Femern Bælt CEO Peter Lundhus said all were of a high quality but the ‘most financially advantageous tenders’ had been chosen.

A cable-stayed bridge across the 19km wide Fehmarn Belt is currently seen as the preferred solution although an immersed tunnel is also being examined to ‘clarify and compare the environmental advantages and disadvantages of the respective engineering solutions’.

Lundhus said his firm wanted to be ‘absolutely sure that all the aspects have been examined before we decide. After all, the fixed link will be designed to last for more than 100 years, and so finding the optimum engineering and aesthetic solutions is crucial’.

He also noted that the dimensions of a bridge project would exceed those of the existing Øresund Bridge by 50% so ‘we will have to develop a range of new methods for the Fehmarnbelt link’.

By Tom Todd