Workers attend a ceremony for the rollout of China's largest export-bound tunnel boring machine on Saturday in Changshu, East China's Jiangsu Province. (Photo: Wang Cong/GT)
Chinese companies team up to build Indonesia's $5 bln high speed railway
Chinese firm CCCC Tianhe Mechanical Equipment Manufacturing Co rolled out China's largest export-bound slurry tunnel boring machine (TBM) on Saturday, marking what officials call a milestone in China's push for high-end machinery exports in a market that has been dominated by developed countries.
With a diameter of 13.19 meters and state-of-the-art technology, the TBM is the largest and most advanced any Chinese company has ever built for an overseas project and will be used in a multibillion-dollar high-speed rail project in Indonesia, according to CCCC Tianhe, a subsidiary of State-owned construction firm China Communications Construction Co (CCCC).
"This breaks a new record for China's exports of large diameter TBMs," Zhang Hongwen, general manager of CCCC's equipment manufacturing unit, said at a ceremony in Changshu, East China's Jiangsu Province.
The TBM is 101 meters long and weighs 2,600 tons and boasts state-of-the-art technology.
Its specialized functions were specifically engineered to meet the needs of Indonesia's Jakarta-Bandung high-speed rail project, according to a company press release.
The high-speed rail project, which will link Jakarta with the city of Bandung, is the country's first high-speed rail line and is being constructed by a consortium of Chinese and Indonesian firms, with much of the roughly $5 billion budget being supplied by the China Development Bank.
First signed in 2015, the project is also one of the first overseas high-speed rail projects by Chinese companies and a flagship project under the Belt and Road initiative (BRI) in Southeast Asia.
The project had been stalled due to licensing, financing and land acquisition issues which have been resolved and the pace of construction is expected to speed up, according to media reports, citing China Railway Corp, one of the contractors of the project.
"This super-large TBM will inject fresh energy in the construction of the Jakarta-Bandung high-speed rail project, which is a symbolic joint project of China and Indonesia under the BRI," Zhang said.
Compared to traditional tunelling methods such as rock drilling, blasting, TBMs help limit the impact to the surface and produce a smooth tunnel wall, perfect for certain tunnel projects running through unstable geological conditions.
While China has exported smaller TBMs, the global market has mainly been dominated by companies from developed countries such as Germany, Japan and the US, but the super-large TBM shows the steady rise of China's TBM manufacturing capabilities, according to Shen Yimin, deputy head engineer at CCCC Tianhe.
"With support from policy initiatives and rising demand for such equipment from projects under the BRI, I'm confident that our TBMs will soon dominate the global market," Shen told the Global Times on Saturday.
Shen said that rail and road projects under the BRI provide a great opportunity for China's machinery and equipment manufacturers to go global.
"Right now, I can say that we are in the forefront of equipment manufacturing on a global stage," he said.
Apart from the new TBM rolled out on Saturday for the Indonesia's rail project, CCCC Tianhe said that there will be many other orders for super large TBMs both at home and abroad. The companies are slated to roll out a new TBM with diameter of 17 meters next year.
