The Western Australian Government has finalised negotiations with the joint venture of Salini Impregilo and NRW to design, construct and maintain a rail line to Perth’s airport.
WA transport minister Dean Nalder announced the SINRW joint venture as preferred respondent for the new rail line in February.
On April 28, premier Colin Barnett said the sides had successfully hashed out a deal.
“SINRW are contracted to build the eight kilometres of rail tunnels and three stations for the Forrestfield Line, as well as maintenance of the tunnel and civil structures for 10 years after completion,” Barnett said.
“This is a huge milestone on the path to delivering this project, which will change the face of Perth’s eastern corridor and give people direct access to the airport by public transport.”
With first trains targeted for 2020, the Forrestfield-Airport Line is a $2 billion project to build an 8.5 kilometre rail spur from the Midland Line out to Forrestfield via Belmont and Perth Airport.
Two of the planned stations have been renamed, Nalder announced last week: the station formerly known as Airport West will now be named Belmont, and the station formerly known as Consolidated Airport will now be known as Airport Central.
The new line’s third station will be its terminus, Forrestfield.
$370 million of early work to build the line is already underway. The contract formally awarded to SINRW last week is worth $1.18 billion.
“Various forward works have been underway at Forrestfield since November 2015 and I expect the joint venture to mobilise on site in the coming months,” Nalder said.
“The project’s direct employment is expected to peak at about 600 workers.”
The SINRW joint venture won the major works contract over two other shortlisted joint ventures: one between John Holland and Leighton Contractors, and another between ACCIONA Infrastructure, BAM International and Ferrovial Agroman.
SINRW is 80% Salini Impregilo and 20% NRW.
NRW is a service provider operating in the civil, mining and construction sectors. Managing director and chief executive Jules Pemberton described the Forrestfield-Airport contract as “a significant milestone in our company’s history”.
Salini Impregilo is an Italian multinational specialising in the construction of major projects. It is already responsible for a $220 million contract to construct the Skytrain section of the Sydney Metro Northwest project.