Greater tunnel vision Leonhard Nilsen & Sonner

GREATER TUNNEL vISION

Leonhard Nilsen & Sonner (LNS) is one of the world’s most successful civil engineering companies. It offers unique expertise in overcoming the most extreme challenges, including hostile environments and exceptional logistics. Philip Yorke takes a closer look at a company that not only defies the impossible, but also defines cutting-edge technology in the tunnelling, mining and road construction sectors.

LNS was founded in Norway in 1961 by Malvin Nilsen and his father Leonhard Nilsen. Since then the company has grown to comprise 16 companies whose core activities include road and tunnel construction, mining, harbour development, bulk transport and deep sea blasting. The company is unique in that its speciality is providing innovative solutions for the world’s most challenging and demanding civil engineering projects.

In recent years LNS has been engaged in high profile projects throughout Norway, the Antarctic, Greenland, Iceland, and Russia. The company is also involved in major civil contracts in Chile and Hong Kong where it has established its own offices. Today LNS is a truly global player with major engineering projects stretching from the North to the South Pole.

LNS operates a large fleet of heavy machinery and equipment that is at the forefront of cutting edge technology in all its many chosen disciplines. The journey from a modest, local company to the emergence of today’s imposing global group with over 12,000 employees and a turnover of more than NOK 2 billion has been a long and challenging one, but also one of many significant achievements. The company’s headquarters are based in Risohamna, Vesteralen, Norway, which is located more than 300 kilometres north of the polar circle.

unrivalled expertise

LNS is very much a global concern and offers a wide range of highly specialised engineering services that include the construction of roads and tunnels, underground mining, earth moving, deep-sea blasting and rock support. The company is at the forefront of the industry in its development and implementation of new engineering technologies, with employees offering unrivalled expertise in their respective fields.

LNS managers are given a lot of freedom and the company cultivates an organisation with short decision-making lines. LNS’s key personnel are also co-owners of the company and it practices a bonus arrangement where 10 per cent of the company’s profits are distributed amongst its employees. Great enthusiasm is therefore an integral part of the LNS company culture.

“We are a global mining, road and tunnel contractor, undertaking projects in difficult locations where the logistics of the operations are very challenging,” explained project director Frode Nilsen. “Our key clients are predominantly mining companies, hydropower businesses and public road and harbour authorities. We have been retained to undertake some of the world’s most prestigious and demanding projects, including the Global Seed Vault in Antarctica, which requires the storage of seeds in the event of a global catastrophe, such as that caused by nuclear war, a major asteroid strike, or serious plant sickness.

“We are also undertaking foundation work in Antarctica where we are building antennas for satellites that are encircling the earth’s poles. In addition, we are working on the construction of a 4.3 km undersea harbour tunnel in Hong Kong as well as being contracted for the excavation and tunnelling of 12 kilometres of a 38 kilometre four-lane highway in southern Norway.”

LNS has been responsible for many of the world’s longest tunnels, including several in Norway, where the group is the major player in

this sector. Transport and communication tunnel projects primarily involve road tunnels; however, LNS has also acquired unique expertise in the construction of tunnels for hydroelectric power plants. Projects in this industry are often interdisciplinary in nature and the company has specialists on staff from many different backgrounds including plant engineering, underground operations and engineering geology. Thus the LNS Group’s expertise is unique and in constant demand from its clients worldwide.

Productive partnerships

Since the late 1990s the Central and Wan Chai Reclamation project has gradually extended the northern shore of Hong Kong Island into Victoria Harbour. Doing so has created more land for waterfront development, allowing several building and transportation projects to move forward.

One of these is the Central-Wan Chai Bypass. This is a 4.3 kilometre dual, three lane highway tunnel that runs between Sheung Wan in the west, to Forest Hill in the east. LNS is one of the main contractors for this project working in partnership with a number of other international companies. The new highway road tunnel is designed to alleviate traffic congestion along the Gloucester Road-Harcourt Road Central Corridor. This strategic road will connect to the island’s eastern corridor expressway at the northern shore of Hong Kong Island.

This high-profile project has utilised LNS’s ‘Drill-and-Break’ tunnelling technology to excavate a mined tunnel 26 metres below ground and 16 metres below the water level of the neighbouring Victoria Harbour. The roadway navigates Hong Kong’s existing busy circulation system by passing 20 metres beneath the southern approach ramp of the Cross-Harbour tunnel which carries around 120,000 vehicles a day.

Another recent example of the benefits of working in partnership with other engineering specialists is exemplified by the company’s joint venture with Leighton Asia Limited, which secured a contract worth more than NOK 2.1 billion for a major sewage tunnel project in Hong Kong. This extensive project is part of the Hong Kong government’s Harbour Area Treatment Scheme. This project involved planning and driving a 7.5-kilometre tunnel with five shafts, each varying from 70 to 100 metres long, through a busy part of the metropolis and harbour, where more than 160,000 ncubic metres of concrete were required. n

For further details of the LNS Group’s latest innovative products and services visit: www.lns.no