China Railway Engineering Equipment GroupCo Ltd (CREG) will enhance localization strategy and accelerate development ofoverseas operations over the next five years

There is something in common about projectslike the West Gate tunnel in Melbourne, the tunneling work for the Red Line ofTel Aviv's light rail service, the Sydhavn Metro Line's extension space inCopenhagen and the drainage tunnel project in Doha.

All of the tunnel boring machines werebuilt by CREG, one of the country's major underground solutions providers bysales revenue.

With many countries adding financialresources to build big-ticket infrastructure projects to cast off the impactcaused by the COVID-19 pandemic, CREG, the Zhengzhou, Henan province-basedprovider of mechanized tunneling technology and services, will focus on supplyingadvanced TBMs to developed markets to reinforce China's role in the world'ssupply chain during the 14th Five-Year Plan period (2021-25).

TBMs are used to excavate tunnels, subwaytubes and sewer lines. Compared with traditional tunnel boring methods likedrill and blasting for manual excavation, the use of such giant TBMs couldminimize the impact on the surroundings and produce a smooth tunnel wall,helping certain tunnel projects manage unstable geologic conditions.

CREG shipped two earth pressure balanceTBMs for the construction of a 12.8-kilometer tunnel of the Naples-BariHigh-Speed Railway in early September. The machines will arrive in Italy by theend of this year.

With diameters of 12.5 meters and 12.2meters, respectively, the TBMs will be the largest ones exported from China toEurope. They are expected to start boring work in the European country in thefirst quarter of 2022.

Zhao Hua, president of CREG, said a numberof opportunities were seen both at home and abroad, especially in economiesparticipating in the Belt and Road Initiative, amid growing demand for specialconstruction machinery and tunnel boring equipment.

Many new foreign orders for upgrading andrenewal of infrastructure facilities were also inked along with subway projects,water conservation and underground crossings.

"TBMs are used to support railway andhighway projects. They are getting larger as tunnels become wider to integrateutilities such as water supply and drainage pipes, telecommunication and powercables," Zhao said.

The official added that the company, asubsidiary of State-owned China Railway Group Ltd, will enhance itslocalization strategy and accelerate development of overseas operations tobuild core competitiveness between 2021 and 2025.

The Chinese firm successfully completed theboring work for a road tunnel under the Swina River, connecting the islands ofUznam and Wolin on the Baltic Sea, in early September. The tunnel is 1,780meters long and CREG's TBM drilled 1,483 meters of the new road under theriver, shortening the commute time from 40 minutes by ferry to 4 minutes byvehicles in the future.

The tunnel features a crown overburden ofabout 26 meters and a minimum horizontal turning radius of 300 meters. Thetunnel alignment crosses fine sand and fine-medium sand with gravel in theUznam and Wolin sides. Below the Swina strait are deposits of fine-medium sandwith gravel.

With a diameter of 13.46 meters, thecustomized machine extends approximately 105 meters and weighs over 2,700metric tons. To better cope with the geology, targeted designs such as acutterhead structure with a big opening ratio, a pipe extension system withzero slurry spillage, and a special articulation design for ease of steeringand cutterhead retraction are applied on the TBM.

Once the tunnel project is completed, itwill provide a direct connection between Uznam and the Polish mainland. Thejourney time will be reduced to just a few minutes, and the mainland'sconnection to Polish holiday areas in West Pomerania will be significantlyimproved, Zhao said.

Currently, transportation is provided byferry crossings. Such a service has a fairly limited capacity and is dependenton weather conditions.

In France, a TBM manufactured and suppliedby CREG broke through at Aulnay station in mid-August for the metro tunnelproject of Line 16 of the Grand Paris Express Lot 2.

The Grand Paris Express is part of theGrand Paris project announced in 2007 to develop Greater Paris into asustainable metropolitan area. For Line 16 of Grand Paris Express Lot 2, theTBM bored a section totaling 11.1 km in length and this was excavated by two9.86-meter diameter TBMs supplied by CREG.

As the first ever and only Chinese TBMmanufacturer in the French market, CREG has ensured the progress of bothprojects and construction safety, Zhao said. Since its launch on April 7, thefirst TBM has successfully overcome many challenges such as umbilical launch ina small space, and its peak daily advance is able to reach 28 meters with stableperformance.

Supported by more than 3,000 employees,including 500 designers to design and manufacture TBMs and associatedequipment, the company has exported TBMs to 26 countries and regions, includingMalaysia, Singapore, India and the Middle East.

To compete with established global rivals,CREG is integrating big data technology and a cloud computing center for smartand remote control of TBMs in both tunneling and services, thus transformingitself from an equipment manufacturer into a complete underground solutionsprovider.

The world's recovery from the COVID-19pandemic, especially in tourism and other service sectors, will create growthmomentum for infrastructure in the post-pandemic era, said Zhao Ying, aresearcher at the Beijing-based Institute of Industrial Economics, which isaffiliated with the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.

This would also help the medium andlong-term development visions of many countries, such as the United ArabEmirates, Saudi Arabia and the Philippines, or spur national strategies to puttheir economic growth on a firmer footing via transportation-relatedinfrastructure projects, expos, utility and service facilities, as well ashospitals and educational institutions.

"Therefore, the world's demand forTBMs will remain stable as many economies are seeking to create jobs andstimulate trade flows via big-ticket transportation, smart city and otherinfrastructure projects, which certainly require tunnels," the researchersaid, adding projects like urban subways and railways that traverse mountainsor waterways usually require the technical support of TBMs.

To better support China's dual-circulationdevelopment paradigm, a strategy featuring domestic and overseas marketsreinforcing each other with the domestic market as the mainstay, CREG willcontinue to deploy resources and manpower to seize greater market share in theBeijing-Tianjin-Hebei region, the Yangtze River Delta region and theGuangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area from 2021 to 2025, said the company.

CREGdigs deep to expand abroad

CREG, the country's biggest manufacturer oftunnel boring machines by both production capacity and revenue, will ship eightsets of the giant machines to international markets including Israel andSingapore in the second half of this year, its chairman said.

As a unit of State-owned China RailwayGroup Ltd, the company focuses on the development and production of shieldtunneling machines and tunnel boring machines. China used to completely rely onimports until 2008 when CREG independently developed its own shield tunnelingmachine after six years of research.

Chairman Tan Shunhui said CREG planned toestablish new operation centers in Australia, the United States and Italy overthe next three years.

He said it would build sales networks andteam up with local dealers, as well as handling tender and bid processes inmore overseas projects, especially those countries and regions related to theBelt and Road Initiative.

"Many of these opportunities come fromthese markets' growing demand for subway projects, water conservation,railways, highways and underground crossings," Tan said.

He said that undeveloped infrastructureposes a bottleneck to economic development in countries and regions related tothe initiative.

The Zhengzhou-based company has so far producedsome 592 tunnel boring machines for both the domestic and internationalmarkets, including 25 sets for international destinations such as Vietnam,Lebanon, India and Malaysia.

CREG's sales totaled 4.86 billion yuan($704 million) in 2016, up 152 percent year-on-year, while export volumes lastyear reached 370 million yuan, up 203 percent from 2015.

The company said its tunneling machines hadnotable advantages over traditional excavators because they were safer, fasterand more convenient. They can operate totally underground, without disturbingtraffic above. Moreover, they freed up staff from dangerous work.

CREG already opened an operation center inGermany to handle European contracts and others in Singapore and Hong Kong tomanage its Asian and African projects. It also supplied pipe jacking machinesand auxiliary equipment to clients in South Korea and Iran.

"We found that many developed marketshave increasing demand to expand their metro networks," Tan said.

He said the company's next priority wassecuring orders for tunnel-engineering equipment from high-speed railwayprojects in the United Kingdom and Turin's water improvement project in Italy.The company has more than 2,260 employees, including 80 technicians carryingout consultancy and after sales work in overseas markets.

Sun Fuquan, a researcher at the ChineseAcademy of Science and Technology for Development in Beijing, said Chineseengineering equipment makers are set to become some of the largestbeneficiaries of the Belt and Road Initiative.

"It is critical for them to enhancebrand recognition and a localization process to further compete with thoseestablished rivals from Japan, Germany, Sweden and the United States," Sunsaid.