Prelim List Indicates 17 TBMs for Building Mumbai Metro’s Line-3

Shani Wallis over at Tunnel Talk has published an article on the commencement of ground work for building Mumbai Metro’s 33.5 km underground Line-3 project between Cuffe Parade and SEEPZ. Within the article is a list, preliminary at the best, of 17 Tunnel Boring Machines (TBMs) which will be used by the 5 main civil contractors selected in July 2016 for building the line.

Do note that until now, barring the Robbins Company‘s blurb on their Crossover TBMs for Mumbai, no orders have been publicly confirmed by any TBM manufacturer, contractor or the Mumbai Metro Rail Corporation Ltd (MMRCL).

Preliminary list of TBMs ordered as reported by Tunnel Talk:

Package & Scope Contractor TBMs Ordered
1. Cuffe Parade to
Hutatma Chowk
Larsen & Toubro and Shanghai
Tunnel Engineering Co
2 x Robbins Crossover TBMs
2. CST Metro to
Grant Road
Hindustan Construction Co
and Moscow Metrostroy
2 x Terratec TBMs
3. Mumbai Central to
Worli
Doğuş and Soma 2 x Herrenknecht Mixshields
4. Siddhivinayak to
Shitladevi
Continental Engineering Corp,
ITD Cementation
and Tata Projects
3 x Herrenknecht EPBMs
5. Dharavi to
Santacruz
J Kumar Infraprojects and
China Railway Tunnel Group
5 x Terratec machines for
both packages 5 and 6
6. CSIA to CSA
International
J Kumar Infraprojects and
China Railway Tunnel Group
7. Marol Naka to
SEEPZ
Larsen & Toubro and Shanghai
Tunnel Engineering Co
3 x TBMs yet to be
confirmed but perhaps
supplied by a Chinese
manufacturer

A couple of data points:

    1. J Kumar Infraprojects’ JV partner for packages UGC-05 and UGC-06 is China Railway No. 3 Engineering Group Co. Ltd. and not China Railway Tunnel Group. J Kumar had previously partnered up with CRTG in Delhi for building Phase 3’s CC-20 (Delhi Cantt. – Mayapuri) and CC-24 (Nizamuddin – Lajpat Nagar) projects on the 58.6 km Pink Line, but J Kumar chose not to carry their partnership over to Mumbai.
    2. Dogus-Soma JV on package UGC-03 has not yet firmed up their order.
    3. There are talks of L&T-STEC JV using refurbished Herrenknecht TBMs from Singapore for constructing package UGC-07. Tunnel Talk also indicates the number of TBMs and their supplier is “yet to be confirmed”.

Overall, things are getting exciting in Mumbai. The number of TBMs listed (17) fits right into the 14-20 TBM count that I’ve previously estimated, but is not a final count. In the coming months, after all orders are finalized and factory acceptance tests start to get conducted, a true count of the machines & their type/specs will emerge. As far as tunneling works go, I expect the first few TBMs to start arriving on-site in the second half of next year with tunnel excavation works commencing in or after Q4 2017.

February 2017 Update:

MMRCL’s January 2017 newsletter confirms the deployment of 17 TBMs. List:

For more updates, check out the Mumbai section of the Metro Rail Guy!

– TMRG

written by

Global traveler who prefers mass rapid transit

27 Responses to "Prelim List Indicates 17 TBMs for Building Mumbai Metro’s Line-3"

  1. Satya says:

    How many were used in Delhi phase 3 and Bangalore phase 1?

    Reply
    • TMRG says:

      Delhi – 36 TBMs for constructing 54 km X 2 twin tunnels
      Bangalore – 6 TBMs for constructing 8.8 km X 2 twin tunnels

      The figures above include the station boxes (250-300m each), NATM tunnels and ramps, so the actual excavated length by TBMs is less than that – roughly 2/3rd of the UG section.

      Reply
  2. USOZ says:

    Terratec? What country is this based from?

    Reply
    • TMRG says:

      Australia. In Delhi’s Phase 3, their TBMs were deployed on 4 packages (CC-07, CC-20, CC-24 & CC-34) and made a total of 20 breakthroughs – see a really cool collage here. 2 of the TBMs from CC-34 are now on their way to Lucknow – see details/pics here

      Reply
  3. Raju chaudhary says:

    Grraut pump opt ,ro plant opretor ,chiling plant opretor ,concrete pump opretor

    Reply
    • TMRG says:

      Hi, this is not a job recruitment/employment website. Please reach out to MMRCL or any of the 5 contractors listed above 🙂

      Reply
  4. Sanjeev Kumar says:

    TBM mechanic

    Reply
    • TMRG says:

      Hi, this is not a job recruitment/employment website. Please reach out to MMRCL or any of the 5 contractors listed above 🙂

      Reply
  5. Sabir ali says:

    TBM Grout Batching Plant Operator

    Reply
    • TMRG says:

      Hi, this is not a job recruitment/employment website. Please reach out to MMRCL or any of the 5 contractors listed above 🙂

      Reply
  6. Rahul Ranjan says:

    Both TBM(53&54) reached in yard.

    Reply
  7. Ankit Aggarwal says:

    If any TBM launch has started in mumbai…if yes then at which site

    Reply
    • TMRG says:

      None have started. They are expected to start one after the other in Q4 (Sept-Dec) 2017. Some contractors have started piling work for creating TBM launch shafts.

      Reply
  8. Rahul says:

    Who is the supplier for Mumbai metro 3 coaches? I hope this time they don’t order coaches from China ..We want make in India metros not Chinese one.

    Reply
  9. Fan of TMRG says:

    You have the wrong information regarding the TBM’s to be used by Package 3 Dogus Soma. They will be using Slurry TBM’s from NFM Robbins.

    Reply
    • TMRG says:

      Yes – Robbins TBMs will used as confirmed by MMRCL above. The table I’ve posted has been quoted and reproduced from Tunnel Talk – so for integrity I won’t modify it.

      Reply
  10. Sasikumar A.M says:

    Have they confirmed how many TBM and which company TBM are to be used by L&T in package 7

    Reply
  11. Sasikumar A.M says:

    When is L&T planning to start the assembly of TBM for package 1 and package 7

    Reply
    • TMRG says:

      Not sure. If I recall correctly, Robbins has a TBM yard somewhere in Navi Mumbai. They will be brought over on-site whenever the shafts are complete – sometime towards the end of this year.

      Reply
      • Sasikumar A.M says:

        1. Are Robbins gonna provide newly manufactured TBM for Pkg 1 or Refurbished TBM from other projects
        .
        2. When are the TBM s expected to be on site for assembly for pkg 1

        Thanks

        Reply
  12. Sreejesh S. Nair says:

    how will the tunnel thru Mithi river build?

    Reply

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