Its latest contract is for the design and construction of the Orsara-Hirpinia section of the Napoli-Bari high-speed railway. The €1.075bn (£920m) works, which are for client Rete Ferroviaria Italiana (Gruppo FS Italiane), will be carried out by a consortium of Webuild - as leader with a 70% stake - and partner Pizzarotti (30%).
The new contract follows this month’s award of the contract for 11.8km of the same line between Orsara and Bovino for a value of €367.2m. Webuild has also signed the US$16bn final contract for a high-speed railway in Texas, USA. Earlier this month, it was confirmed for a contract worth over €1bn to build a 22.5km section of high-capacity railway on the Italian side of the Alps.
The contract for the Orsara-Hirpinia section is part of the upgrading of the railway between Naples and Bari to prepare it to become part of the fifth corridor of the Trans-European Transport Network (TEN-T) that would run between Helsinki and Valetta.
The railway project has been identified as a priority under the government’s so-called Sblocca Italia (Unlock Italy) decree, which is assigning investments to strategic infrastructure.
The new Orsara-Hirpinia section will be about 28km long and run mostly in a tunnel for about 27km. The speed the trains will be able to reach along the new line is 250km/h, apart from some sections that will be limited to 200km/h.
The two other sections of the railway on which the Webuild Group is already working – Naples-Cancello and Apice-Hirpinia – employ more than 2,200 people, directly and indirectly, and involve a supply chain of approximately 400 businesses, mostly Italian.
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