GENOA, June 17, 2021 – Webuild has reached another milestone on the Terzo Valico dei Giovi project commissioned by Rete Ferroviaria Italiana (RFI) (Gruppo FS Italiane) with the first breakthrough at the Valico tunnel. At 27 kilometres, it will be the longest railway tunnel in Italy. With this latest accomplishment at the Fegino work site in Genoa, workers have dug six continuous kilometres of the tunnel, bringing to 67% the total amount of excavation completed for the entire project.

The Fegino work site is an important juncture for the entire project because it is located where the Terzo Valico dei Giovi line arrives at the port at Voltri and connects with the Genoa Juncture (known as Nodo di Genova in Italian), a sister project that has restarted thanks to the close collaboration between Webuild and RFI. The interconnection is a network of eight kilometres of tunnels that will serve the passage of cargo trains arriving from the port.

The breakthrough unites the Fegino work site - located at the southern end of the Valico tunnel - with the Polcevera work site, located further inland but still withing the limits of the city of Genoa.

The Terzo Valico dei Giovi and the Genoa Junction projects involve a highly specialised Italian chain of supply and service providers, giving work to a combined 5,000 people. The projects will turn Genoa into an international hub by connecting its port to Milan and the rest of Europe according to an interurban rail model. The idea of sustainable mobility that they promote is also being pursued by the government. Under the Piano Nazionale di Ripresa and Resilienza (National Plan of Recovery and Resilience), it will invest in modernising the country’s infrastructure, creating jobs and boosting the economies of the regions where the projects will be developed.

In Italy, where it has built a number of rail and high-speed rail lines from Rome to Milan and Milan to Turin, Webuild is working on the 18 main infrastructure projects to improve the future of Italy, involving 7,000 businesses along the supply chain, such as the Ionian State Highway, the high-speed/high-capacity railway between Verona and Padua, Metro C in Rome and a metro line in Naples. It is also involved in projects for the Trans-European Transport Network (TEN-T) to improve rail connections across the continent. They include the Brenner Base Tunnel under the Alps between Italy and Austria, which will be the longest railway tunnel in the world at 64 kilometers; the high-speed/high-capacity railway between Naples and Bari; and another between Milan and Genoa that will have the longest railway tunnel in Italy. Webuild recently signed a final contract worth $16 billion to build a high-speed railway between Dallas and Houston in Texas that will promote sustainable mobility in the United States.