Construction of the Silvertown tunnel project in the U.K., which involves SK Engineering & Construction (E&C), is going to start after concluding a contract and financial agreement.
The RiverLinx consortium, which was invested by SK E&C, signed an agreement with Transport for London (TfL) on the construction and operation of the project on Nov. 22.
The RiverLinx consortium consists of five companies: SK E&C, Cintra, Spain, Macquarie, Aberdeen Standard, BAM PPP, and has raised about 1 billion pounds (about 1.5 trillion won) in total investment through project financing (PF).
A total of 15 leading domestic and foreign financial institutions, including the Export-Import Bank of Korea, the Korea Trade Insurance Corp., KDB Industrial Bank, KEB Hana Bank, Woori Bank, Samsung Life Insurance, KfW (German Development Bank, Germany), CA-CIB (France) and Aviva (Aviva Insurance, Britain), participated in the project.
The Silvertown tunnel project will create two one-lane road tunnels with a total length of 1.4 kilometers and a diameter of 12.4 meters passing through the lower Thames River to connect London's Silvertown and Greenwich areas.
It will be operated for 25 years after completion of construction and transferred to the city of London in the BOT method.
SK E&C carries out joint EPC (design, procurement, and construction) with Ferrovial Agroman (Spain), and BAM Nutall (UK). SK E&C can expect not only earnings from the construction but also dividend returns on its investment stake as an investor. SK E&C has a 10 percent stake in investment and a 20 percent stake in construction.
