World's largest bridge to connect Italy and Sicily

“I believe that the decisive element was our detailed project analysis,” commented Alberto Rubegni, head of Engineering & Construction at Impregilo. “This involved development of special assembly techniques on all technical, planning and construction components, with the result that we were able to present a highly competitive bid.”

“The award of this contract is the outcome of an extremely complex team effort that began in 2002 and involved 130 people from all the companies in the grouping, together with the specialists at Denmark’s COWI and the scientists of the IHI research centres in Japan,” added Alberto Lina.

Impregilo is the constructor of some of Europe’s and the world’s most important infrastructures. Current general contractor projects in Italy include the Milan-Turin and Bologna-Florence high-speed railways, the Mestre Orbital, the Salerno-Reggio Calabria motorway, the Monte Bianco-Aosta motorway and the Genoa and Naples underground railways. Abroad, Impregilo is working on the St Gothard railway tunnel in Switzerland, the Caracas-Tuy Medio and Puerto Cabello-Encrujiada railways in Venezuela, the Athens underground, the Karahnjukar dam in Iceland and the Mazar dam in Ecuador, and the Portland tunnel in the USA.

“This is a crucial turning point for the bridge project“, said Pietro Ciucci, C.E.O. of Stretto di Messina SpA. “Today marks the end of a phase started in the late 60s with the launch of a contest to submit ideas for the creation of a stable link between Sicily and Calabria. I would like to thank the Awarding Committee for their commitment and professionalism in the last few months in performing the complex bid evaluation work. In announcing the results of the tender, the President of the Awarding Committee, Renato Laschena, Esq., underlined the professionalism, energy and commitment demonstrated by both bidders in the planning phase, being fully aware of the scope of this project, which is certainly the most important engineering work in Italy in the last sixty years”.

“The project has evolved greatly in the last few years during which, in line with the set deadlines, the preliminary project was prepared and approved, a suitable corporate organisation was set up and four international tenders were called to choose all the subjects to be involved in the implementation of this project”, declared Mr. Pietro Ciucci.

On the subject of timing, the C.E.O. stated that: “Once the requirements are checked as established, Stretto di Messina SpA will appoint the definitive winner with resolution by its Board of Directors. The contract is expected to be signed between November and December, upon completion of all the other checks provided for by law. The first task to be performed by the general contractor will concern the preparation of the final design. It will be in this context that the requests made by the Municipalities and Provincial Boards concerned by the work will be acceded. The Project Management Consultant, the Environmental Monitor and the Insurance Broker are all expected to be selected by the end of 2005. Work will start in 2006”.

“This is an important day for the construction of a great engineering work that will relaunch the infrastructural system of Southern Italy, develop the railway capacity south of Naples and create the Berlin-Palermo corridor, by including Sicily and Calabria in the great European transport network”, stated Mr. Giuseppe Zamberletti, President of Stretto di Messina SpA.

Though it’s hard to contemplate a bigger bridge than the Messina bridge, there are several others under consideration that would usurp its status as the world’s largest bridge by a very large margin. They are:

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