How did you choose your contractors for the Great Lakes Tunnel?

Our Answer

Michigan-based Great Lakes Tunnel Constructors will construct the tunnel to house a new Line 5 in the Straits. Great Lakes Tunnel Constructors is a partnership between a Michigan tunnel construction firm, Jay Dee Contractors, Inc., and the U.S. affiliate of Japanese tunnel construction firm, Obayashi Corporation.

Enbridge has also selected Arup, a leading engineering and consulting firm with large-scale infrastructure and tunnel design capabilities, to deliver construction design documentation for the Great Lakes Tunnel Project.

Both firms were selected in March 2020 after the Enbridge project team conducted a robust and lengthy selection process that occurred over the course of three months and involved several face-to-face meetings.

Arup has extensive tunnel related experience; including design of the world’s highest pressure tunnel, design of the largest TBM constructed tunnel in the world, and numerous other river, lake and sea tunnel crossing designs involving a wide range of ground conditions.

Meanwhile, Great Lakes Tunnel Constructors' project team has a collective track record of constructing nearly 500 pressurized-face tunnels consisting of more than 2.4 million feet of tunnelway. A number of those projects involved high pressure and ground condition parameters similar to those that will exist in the Straits of Mackinac.